About Us

The HMI Story:
HMI is named after Haci Halide Balkas Mehmetoglu. Haci Halide was born Halide Balkas on May 6, 1929, in the village of Muradiye, known as Xincis in Kurdish. Her father was an outspoken proponent of education, as he was the first member of his family to attend higher education. Wanting all his children to be educated people, Haci Halide and her sister were the only two girls out of all the students at the village school, despite attitudes towards female education at the time. After her passing, her grandson Alan had the idea of commemorating his grandmother’s legacy through a charity project. Remembering his grandmother’s passion for charity and education, and providing resources for the youth he created an initiative to provide Kurdish children, especially in rural areas, vital opportunities for personal development in communities where such opportunities are generally few and far between. Starting in his grandmother’s village, Alan sought to provide such opportunities beginning in his grandmother’s village. Recognizing the vitality of sports in fostering communal life, he currently seeks to build a sporting complex for the village's children. Eventually, he aims to build a technological classroom to teach the digital skills vital to functioning as a world citizen. Naturally, he named his initiative after his grandmother, Haci Halide Mehmetoglu.