Events – Sponsored walk 6th November 2005

Members, friends and family took part in a sponsored walk on Saturday 6th November 2005 to mark Mines Action Awareness Week. The money collected will be donated to the Halo Trust for de-mining operations in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK), chosen in memory of the visit of Vardan Tadevosyan to Cardiff in 2003, made possible through the funds raised by our Club and colleagues across the SI Wales South Region. Vardan is the Director of the Rehabilitation Centre in Stepanarkert. Much of the physical renovation of a derelict building has been done in his spare time. He has established a games room (bar billiards and table tennis), art and wood carving classes, speech and language therapy and IT training as well as the more traditional therapies, such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy, plus some residential facilities – there is still much to be done. He takes patients who are victims of trauma, of diseases such as strokes, and other disabilities.

NK is a small country within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan but with a narrow corridor linking it to Armenia. The residents are Armenian in origin. There was a war between the Karabakhis and Azeris in the early nineties which the Karabakhis won. They are now seeking to establish a democratic republic and to gain international recognition. Currently it is not recognised as an independent country by the UN, EU, Russia and the CIS or theUSA. It is territorially a part of Azerbaijan but sees itself as linked irrevocably with Armenia from whom it obtains help and support; a consequence of this dislocation is the reluctance of funding bodies to commit themselves to giving aid.

As a consequence of the war there are many landmines along the border with Azerbaijan. The Halo Trust is working to clear the land and estimates that it will take many years at today's pace to clear them all.