HALO, a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, has its head office in Dumfries. Its singular mandate is to remove landmines and unexploded ordinance from the nine countries it operates in. It deployed its first de-mining team in Mozambique in February 1994, and has now declared the country's six northern provinces mine-free, leaving only the south to be made safe.After finishing her Bachelor of Science degree in biology and anthropology at Durham University, Gray worked as an interpreter for the Scottish Sea Bird Centre then as an expedition guide in Peru's threatened rainforests. Back in Britain she speculatively sent her CV to HALO. Her neighbour had told her about the organisation and she had already decided she wanted to work in a humanitarian field.Gray has worked for HALO since 2004 – when she was just 24 – doing her initial six-month training in Cabo Delgado, on the northern border of Mozambique, in the minefields laid by the Portuguese back in the early 1970s, when the country was fighting for its independence from Portugal.