The Packs on Backs initiative, was started by the The Heros Humanitarian Foundation (HHF), a former Los Angeles based non-profit organization that supported children in need and their educational advancement. HHF partnered with The Paros Foundation to bring their Packs on Backs initiative to Armenia, and together successfully distributed 380 backpacks and school supplies to children in Gyumri and Vanadzor in the summer of 2015 and 225 backpacks to the children at the Kharpert Children’s Home in the summer of 2016. Since then, the Packs on Backs initiative continues to impact the lives of children in need in Armenia with this essential need.

Our next distribution will be for the kids attending the Debi Arach Children’s Center in Gyumri. Socially vulnerable children attend the center after their school and receive both humanitarian and educational support through a holistic approach. The Paros Foundation established the Debi Arach Children’s Center on April 15, 2015 and has since provided children each week the necessary academic, psychological, social and humanitarian support they need to succeed. Gyumri’s devastating history has left more than 100,000 residents homeless, and plagued with unemployment and rampant poverty. These families often struggle to provide their children with life’s basic necessities; therefore making backpacks and school supplies a distant priority. Children at the center were recipients of backpacks and school supplies during our first distribution in 2015. This distribution will meet the ongoing needs of both current and new children. Our goal is to provide 30 new attendees with new backpacks and school supplies and replenish the school supplies for 180 children who already have backpacks. A donation of $30 will help obtain one backpack filled with supplies for one child. School supplies will be grade appropriate and include a combination of pencils, pens, pencil cases, notebooks, folders, erasers, sharpeners, glue, scissors, rulers, highlighters, and crayons. In-kind donations of the items listed are also welcomed.

The Kharpert Home for Special Children is an orphanage located in the village of Nor Kharpert serving more than 250 children with varying degrees of developmental disabilities. The orphanage is a state run facility that receives governmental support to provide these vulnerable children with basic care and education.

Excursions to amusement parks and/or other appropriate venues provide these children with both valuable community experience and needed recreation. Children with disabilities in Armenia are generally kept sheltered from society. These children do not attend school, but rather attend classes at the orphanage. It is important for both these children and society that they experience community life.

For each donation of $250, approximately 20 children and an appropriate number of care provides will be able to go on an excursion to Yerevan at Victory Park, or another appropriate venue for a morning or afternoon of activities including transportation, admission and snacks. Please consider supporting multiple excursions for these children.

The Kharpert Home for Special Children is an orphanage located in the village of Nor Kharpert serving more than 250 children with varying degrees of developmental disabilities. The orphanage is a state run facility that receives governmental support to provide these vulnerable children with basic care and education.

Excursions to amusement parks and/or other appropriate venues provide these children with both valuable community experience and needed recreation. Children with disabilities in Armenia are generally kept sheltered from society. These children do not attend school, but rather attend classes at the orphanage. It is important for both these children and society that they experience community life.

For each donation of $250, approximately 20 children and an appropriate number of care provides will be able to go on an excursion to Yerevan at Victory Park, or another appropriate venue for a morning or afternoon of activities including transportation, admission and snacks. Please consider supporting multiple excursions for these children.

Verin Getashen is a large village located just southwest of Lake Sevan.  The village was founded in the early 1800s by migrants from Mush and Alashkert in present day Eastern Turkey.  Almost 5,000 people call Verin Getashen their home.  More than 300 children attend the school, which is in poor condition.  Major needs of the school including replacing the roof, windows and heating system will be addressed as funds become available for this project.

Following the 1988 Spitak Earthquake, tens of thousands of people were left homeless in the City of Gyumri. Many of these families took refuge in the overseas shipping containers (domiks) that were shipped into Armenia loaded with humanitarian relief supplies, or in condemned buildings. An entire generation of children has grown up in deplorable conditions, often times with no running water and little or no heat. The Armenian government has provided most of the families that lost their homes in the Earthquake with new housing units.

As people moved out of those makeshift housing units, others moved in. The 2,500 or so families that remain are Gyumri’s desolate families, who are not in line to receive a government provided apartment. Many of these families are comprised of single mothers, multiple children and/or the disabled.

This project will identify suitable needy families who can be moved into a new apartment and can demonstrate that they can afford their monthly utilities, etc. This is a sustainable model in that families that have been moved into permanent housing in the past have had a high degree of success maintaining their families and their new homes.

Once the move is complete, the make shift housing unit will be destroyed to prevent its future occupancy.

GOALS encourages communities to transform societal norms into equitable values. Sport enables them to push for discussions around gender equity in marriage, leadership positions, and opportunities in a way that other mechanisms don’t allow through on-field games, soccer matches, and cross-cultural events.

Our main challenge in 2019 was to create demand for girls’ sports teams in the regions and villages of Armenia. We are proud to say that we have accomplished our mission. But with this accomplishment comes the new challenge of meeting that demand.

For 2020, at GOALS we seek to empower #everygirl in Armenia to find a pathway to an alternate possible future. While we have already impacted over one thousand girls by allowing them to unlock their potential through sports, we still have a long way to go. With your support, we will be able to expand our reach to many more villages in the regions of Armenia, revamp our sport for social impact curriculum and truly live into the movement that we have ignited.

#Everygirl deserves the chance to shine, play, grow. With GOALS our girls develop a voice, one that will carry them through life as the leaders they are born to be.

Your donations will go directly towards the expansion and operations of our Leagues in Tavush and Gegharkunik regions. Costs include uniforms, sports equipment, travel for teams to practices and games, coaches training, coordination and staffing associated with the Leagues.

Nor Luyce aims to provide girls the means to become self-sufficient, healthy, globally aware young women, who have set personal and career goals and who have created an action plan of how to achieve them. Our program was developed to improve self-esteem, self-reliance, and a sense of community and then build on these skills and potential. We believe in empowering teenage girls from orphanages and low-income families to build a community of strong, thoughtful, creative young women who are the future of Armenia.

In order to improve the future and career opportunities for girls from socially disadvantage families and foster cares, we prove a 3-phase, 3-year mentoring program that impacts approximately 60 girls a year. Currently, we are seeking funding for our first phase, which will provide a mentoring to 20 new Nor Luyce beneficiaries, aged 13-14 raising the number from 60 to 80.

Our Mentoring Phase program covers 11 months, during which 20 girls, aged 13-14, from socially vulnerable families and foster care receive mentoring. Each mentor-mentee pair meet approximately 40 times for individual meetings as well as partake in 20 group meetings. During our mentoring phase, we also focus on empowering participants to become active community members through service activities, cultural events, and building leadership through various responsibilities such as presenting information to their peers and other organization members. We also offer tutoring services for any participant who is struggling academically.

In order to decrease the likelihood that girls will be trafficked or married off at a young age, we strive to provide teenagers (13-14 year old) with a positive role model and a strong connection with other girls and prominent community leaders. We focus on career aspirations and how to create the best version of themselves, using the traits, skills, and strengths the participants already have. We also believe, that in order to empower young girls, we need to have a comprehensive approach to their development, as such following the first phase we then focus on skill-building trainings, career development, and offer scholarships for higher education. As of now, we have seventeen girls currently involved in higher education institutions, two more girls have already graduated from colleges and universities and now they work with their profession. On top of these, we have one mentee who graduated from a college which she had to admit because of the inforce of her parents, however, she could find the inner strength to change her profession and pursue the degree that was close to her heart.

More than 2,700 people live in the isolated border community of Artsvabert. The village is in desperate need of a second kindergarten to accommodate two additional groups of children (60 total), as the current existing kindergarten is full. 

Near the primary school in the village, there is an existing building that needs a complete renovation including new roof, windows, doors, kitchen, bathrooms.  In addition, work will be completed to the entrance to create a safe and convenient entry to the kindergarten.  Once renovated, this building would easily house two additional groups of kindergarten aged children. 

Following the complete reconstruction of the new kindergarten, new furniture and kitchen equipment will be installed.

Nor Luyce works with young girls, ages 14-17, from two local orphanages and/or from poverty stricken families from Gyurmi, Armenia. Under the direction of their Executive Director, Shoghik Mikayelyan, the program provides their mentees with positive roles models and emotional support. The reduction of isolation is provided by mentors and by field trips, which expose the children to various work and educational settings. In addition, Nor Luyce’s program emphasizes the development of educational and career plans. They are now at the stage of either beginning or continuing to help implement each older child’s plan for higher education. Each child has also either completed or is in the process of completing a career plan, which includes the most appropriate type and place of higher education.

Nor Luyce is trying to provide Marine, a young girl from Gyumri, with a scholarship that would reduce her out of pocket costs towards her education. Lusine lives at home with her father, mother, sister and brother. Her parents are farmers. At times Marine’s father leaves for Russia to find a job. Their monthly income is 48000 AMD which is not enough to take care of the family and pay the tuition fee of Marine who has just entered University. Marine graduated from the school with high performance. During her free time, she draws and read books. She has been a part of Nor Luyce NGO since 2016. She has successfully finished Mentoring Phase, Skill-Building Phase and now she is in the Scholarship phase. Marine has been very passive, shy and closed-off, and she had fears of expressing her ideas. However, thanks to the great work that her mentor did, Marine became very active, she takes part in all the group meetings and actively expresses her ideas. She has been volunteering her time at the organization scanning and filling out budet documents. The requested scholarship funds will help Marine continue her studies and cover the costs of her tuition, uniform, books, stationaries, winter clothing and her transportation fee for one year.

Արծվաբերդ (Artsvabert) is a town in the Տավուշ (Tavush) province of Armenia, which shares a 34km long border with Azerbaijan. Artsvaberd is located in a particularly remote and isolated part of Tavush.  Artsvabert has a population of almost 2,600 people living in 500 homes.  Most of these homes only receive water once every three days for one hour.  The lack of enough clean water has resulted in the absence of basic household conveniences, thus making life in Artsvabert difficult for its population.  The implementation of the Artsvabert Water Pipe & Reservoir Renovation program will provide daily water to the majority of the households in Artsvabert.