Sundays may be a day of rest for some, but NOT for us!  I started my day preparing for our trip to Tavush tomorrow. Then met friends Andrea and Diron, and the incredible GOALS staff for lunch and a planning session for our GOALs project, including having our SERVICE Armenia group join and help out at one of their summer soccer camps.

Lunch and strategic planning session with the GOALs Team.

Then my colleague, Gegham and I visited the kindergarten in the village of Nor Geghi.  We are just about complete with the renovation of the hallway, stairwell and kindergarten’s auditorium.  Our construction crew was working on putting down the second coat of sealant on the parquet flooring.  I made them stop for a quick photo!

The Nor Geghi Auditorium with its final coat of floor sealant.

Gegham and our local work crew on the stage in the Nor Geghi kindergarten auditorium.

Mt. Ararat

I watched the sun come up this morning and this was my view.  Pretty awesome.

Roger and I.

Today I met with our Chairman, Roger Strauch for a strategy session.

Roger and I discussed the Foundation’s direction, our new website and I updated him on our Prosperity on the Border campaign.

Following our strategy session, I met with my colleague, Sevan Amirians to discuss several projects that fall within our Prosperity on the Border campaign.  Monday we depart for the Tavush Region for several days to start many of the projects that are funded and ready to be implemented and also plan our next steps.

Sevan and I.

My colleague, Gegham and I left Yerevan for Vanadzor at 9 a.m. in the rain.  By 10 a.m., the rain had turned to snow.  Road conditions remained good for the most part and we arrived at the Vanadzor Music School #3 only about 20 minutes behind schedule.

The Vanadzor Music School #3 was rebuilt after the 1988 Spitak Earthquake as a result of the efforts of the Bay Area Armenian community who used proceeds from the opening night performance and Gala Dinner of the Arshak II Opera to support the music schools reconstruction.  The Paros Foundation maintains a small fund to support the school with musical instruments, building maintenance needs and other needed supplies.  We have also been successful in supporting some scholarships for students attending the school.  250 students attend classes at the school, studying both classical and folk instruments, dance and vocals.  It is a great place.

The floor in the dance instruction room is warn and needs replacement for students at the Vanadzor Music School #3.

We visited to check up on things and assess what needs they might have.  The floor in the room used for dance instruction needs to be replaced so we took some measurements and will tackle that project soon.

My colleague Gegham, Museum Director Papag Aloyan and I in front of the Vanadzor Museum of Fine Arts.

Next we visited the Vanadzor Museum of Fine Arts.  We have worked to promote the Museum and its amazing collection of art for many years.  The Museum building itself needs a considerable amount of TLC, but the museum staff is very active both holding special exhibits and activities, and working on writing grants both to sponsor special exhibits and to upgrade the facility.  Be sure to include this museum on any visit to or through Vanadzor!  In addition to learning about the Museum’s current needs, we visited the Museum’s Gift Shop that we built there in 2009 in memory of Angela and Karekin Barsoumian to promote the sales of local artists work to benefit both the artist and the Museum.  We helped brand the Museum with both a website and official logo and a street sign several years ago and it is time to replace the outdoor sign.

Our third and final stop in the Vanadzor area was in the village of Gugark.  We visited the family of one of our fallen soldiers from the April War, Nodarik Margaryan.  This Hero fought in the Artsakh war in the late 80s and early 90s and had since been enlisted as a contract soldier.  He was killed in Artsakh and is survived by his elderly mother, his son and daughter and one grand daughter.  Nodarik’s son has a genetic disease that has kept him from physically growing.  While he is 24, he appears as if he is 9 or 10 years old.  The family makes ends meet through farming their plot of land and caring for 50 chickens and a cow.  As part of our Support Our Heroes project, we initially met with his family in 2016 and offered them our condolences and provided the family with $1,000.

Not a great photo, but here is the Margaryan’s cow.

Thanks to the support of AIWA-San Francisco, we were able to revisit this family one year later and provide them with a cow as a source of ongoing economic support.  With some of our remaining project funds, we wanted to assess what we could do next to help this family.

The Margaryan family is working to renovate a small room in this barn to temporarily house their new pig enterprise.

When we visited, they were already working on a plan to do some very modest barn renovations and purchase two or three pigs.  It is pretty uplifting to try and assist a family that is working hard to help themselves.  We will remain in close contact and help this family launch this new enterprise.

Gegham and I departed for Yerevan and made it back through the rain and snow in time to stop at the tailor shop to pick up our new Paros winter coats!

This morning, my colleague Gegham and I departed for the Hatsik School in Armavir despite the fact that it is International Women’s Day and a national holiday (schools are closed today and tomorrow.) Our construction crew is making solid progress renovating the school’s assembly hall and adjacent hallway.  We began our work on one building in Hatsik with our SERVICE Armenia crew of volunteers in 2013, and an agreement with COAF to renovate the other building on campus.  Both buildings are now in terrific shape and the students and staff are very excited about the addition of this assembly space.  The auditorium and hallway renovation is sponsored through a generous donation from the Ariyan family from New York, who visited the school as part of their family visit to Armenia (thank you!) The crew informed us that work should be completed in 45 days.

The Hallway adjacent to the auditorium at the Hatsik School.

Work in the auditorium is progressing well at the Hatsik School.

We returned to Yerevan and made a quick stop at our amazing tailor who is not only altering a few things for me, but is embroidering a seat cover for our Mobile Dental Clinic.  We dropped off new winter coats so he can add our Paros logo to them, and discussed adding the appropriate logos to staff scrubs for the Apelian Dental Clinic and the Mobile Dental Clinic.

Next stop was at the Ideal store.  Ideal is one of the largest suppliers of building materials and supplies in Armenia.  We purchase most of our tile, flooring, heating and bathroom fixtures from there because we have negotiated a very healthy discount on our purchases through their corporate offices.  And as an added bonus, they are only importing products from Russia, Iran and Europe.  So, our task at Ideal today was to purchase about 1,100 square feet of porcelain tiles for the kitchen and cafeteria at the Rind village school.  Mission accomplished.

Along the way, we were able to successfully set our appointments for our visit to Vanadzor tomorrow.

I ended the day back at my apartment with some soup and giving in to my jet lag.

As part of our effort to be fully transparent, answer questions about our work and feature what it takes to implement successful projects, I am messing around with the concept of blogging highlights of my trip to Armenia on a daily basis–so here goes nothing.

The X-Ray machine needs an upgrade to allow for digital X-rays at the Apelian Clinic.

The first patient of the morning at the Apelian Clinic.

This morning, my colleague, Gegham and I started our day at the George Apelian Dental Clinic in Yerevan.  We have worked with the clinic for the last two years.  The clinic provides free dental services for children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families through the Pyrkutyun Center in the Shengavit neighborhood of Yerevan.  The clinic has a couple of needs including a $2,000 attachment to their x-ray machine that will allow for digital x-rays for their patients.  We need to put together an effort to raise these funds.

Then, we left for the one and a half hour drive to the village of Rind.  Back in November, The Paros Foundation and the Armenia Tree Project held a joint fundraiser in New York to raise support for the renovation of the Rind school’s kitchen, cafeteria and the planting of more than 500 trees and the implementation of environmental curriculum at the school.  Thanks to the generous donors, this project is fully funded and a local crew has been hired and work is already underway.  The mayor is overseeing some roof repairs and helping bring water and sewer lines to the new kitchen.  Be sure to check out the Rind School project page on the website.

This is the location of the new kitchen and cafeteria for the Rind village school.

Work is progressing nicely on the subfloor and walls.

Workers were able to begin earlier than planned because of warmer than expected weather in Rind.

The work is progressing well.  The crew was working on repairing the walls and pouring the new subfloors.  Once they dry, they will begin working on the plaster and installing the new tile floor.  We met with the school’s principal, Ashot, who is supervising the work on a daily basis.  We discussed the kitchen equipment needs, furniture and additional supplies.  We wrapped up our visit and headed back to Yerevan.

Upon our return to Yerevan, we were joined by our colleague, Sevan, and we met with the team at FAR to discuss possible cooperation on our Prosperity on the Border projects.  Both Paros and FAR are working on several fronts with the communities along the Armenia Azerbaijan border in Tavush.  We had a great discussion and hopefully this will lead to future cooperation.

Dear friends,

I am writing to update you on the situation in Armenia and Artsakh.

As of today, 86 people have lost their lives as a result of Azerbaijan’s aggressive and calculated military attack along the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, April 2nd to the 5th. The current situation is tense, but stable. A cease-fire is in place, but the Azeris are still shooting with various caliber weapons every evening.  On April 3rd, in response to numerous inquiries from donors and friends, The Paros Foundation launched a Hero Support Fund to raise funds and provide them to families of our deceased Heroes.

Our goal remains to provide a minimum of $1,000 to each family of our Heroes. Armenians from 18 countries around the world (including Armenia, Australia, Austria  Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Rep. of Georgia, Germany, Italy, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US)  have come together to support the families of our Heroes. Currently, we have raised almost $50,000 which will support 50 families. Funds will be distributed to the grieving families of our Heroes beginning in the next two weeks.  I am departing for Armenia soon to personally begin the process of delivering funds to our Heroes’ families.

I would like to offer a very special thank you to Mr. Serj Tankian who has assisted with raising awareness regarding our efforts to bring a bit of relief to the families of our Heroes, along with the many other people who are also working towards this important goal.  We are humbled to be serving as a conduit to support the families of our Heroes. As with any of our projects, 100% of your donation will be used to support this project without any administrative costs.

Help us keep this effort strong until we have raised enough funds to provide each family with $1,000. We thank all of you who have already contributed.

We must mobilize and do what we can to stand in solidarity with the families of our Heroes, who have died defending their Nation. While these funds will not completely address this tragic loss of life, nor ease the grief of our Hero families, it will provide them a bit of relief during these difficult times and show them that the world cares about them.

Thank you and please contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Peter J. Abajian
Executive Director

Manana Center started a two-year project of Creating a Network of Young Reporters in Armenia with support of The United Nations Democracy Fund.

During the project media workshops for youngsters on journalism, photojournalism and filmmaking will be organized in different regions of Armenia. Participants, under the supervision of expert tutors, will produce alternative content through multiple platforms, including a series of articles, films, interviews, multimedia outputs documenting real-life stories experienced by local communities, through photo exhibitions, film screenings and magazines, and also through internet.

The project aims to empower young people through the enhancement of media skills which will raise the level of participation in civic life and the formulation of a democratic society.

This week Manana Center hosted students of College Preperatory School, Oakland, California. On the
first day students visited Manana Center, watched several films, animations and photos by our students.

The next day after traveling to Saghmosavanq, all the students went to Nork orphanage and helped with cleaning the area for the future playgro
und, which is one of the projects of The Paros 100 Projects for Prosperity Program launched by Paros Foundation.
Later Manana’s students visited the house where CPS’s students stay in, made a pixelation and shooted a short film. For the next two days students visited Garni, Geghard, Sevan and Dilijan.