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.

In 2014, Mariam, her husband and two children had saved up enough money to purchase their own domik.  They had lived in a neighboring rental domik since the time they were married.  On May 31, 2018, Mariam’s husband took his own life.  Mariam and her children receive governmental support to survive.

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

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 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 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.

The Yeghiazaryan family has been identified and screened as a family to benefit from a new apartment.  Ashot, his wife Ruzan, and their children Arthur and Anna live in terrible conditions.  During the rains, their domik fills with water from the surrounding area.  Ashot works in Gyumri’s central market, hauling purchases for customers.  Anna, suffers from mental illness and her mother cares for her full time. The Yeghiazaryan family is not on any list to receive an apartment as their family did not loose a home in the earthquake.

Once the move is complete, the make shift housing unit will be dismantled to prevent its future occupancy, and the land returned to the city.

Gyumri is Armenia’s second largest city with the poorest population, including single mothers and the elderly. Following the devastating 1988 Spitak Earthquake, in which more than 25,000 people lost their lives and more than 100,000 people were left homeless, Gyumri’s residents did whatever they could to find temporary shelter. This included moving into “domiks,” the overseas shipping containers in which earthquake related humanitarian goods were shipped to Armenia. 30 years following the earthquake, about 2,200 poverty stricken families remain in various forms of temporary housing. In addition to inadequate housing, unemployment and rampant poverty, Gyumri’s people are also faced with extreme winters, with January and February being the coldest months.
The harsh winters and extreme poverty lead to people picking through trash to find something that they can burn to keep warm and cook food for their families. Due to the intense cold weather and toxic fumes, children often get sick and are unable to attend school.

This effort will ensure that 300 families in Gyumri will receive fuel for heating and cooking through firewood for month’s period. Our partner for this project, the Shirak Center NGO, will help distribute the firewood to the families as funds are raised.

Girls of Armenia Leadership Soccer (GOALS) is the only NGO working across Armenia to use sports for social change outside the classroom. Girls who play sports exhibit higher confidence levels, better mental health, improved teamwork and communication skills, increased graduation rates, and leadership skills. GOALS directly impacts more than 2,500 girls and boys in 65 communities.

Meet Tatevik Movsisyan. The first player from a GOALS league to join the Armenian Women’s Under-19 National Team. Tatevik’s passion for soccer began when she was eight years old watching boys play soccer in their village field and dreamt of taking part in it. However, it seemed like an impossible dream for her because of the stereotypes in her village. Then, at the age 11, she was nominated best soccer player in her village during a soccer tournament. Shortly thereafter, she joined the GOALS Achajur team. It was strange at first for the village to accept the idea of a girls’ team. As the league continued, her father even observed her practices and started to recognize her skills, slowly changing his mentality. Since GOALS arrived, there has been a transformation in her village. More girls want to join the team and boys accept and encourage girls to play soccer. Tatevik feels more confident and dedicated. She wants to continue her studies in sports and soccer, with a dream of becoming a referee. Without GOALS, she does not think she would have these opportunities or aspirations.

 

The Kharpert Home for Special Children is an orphanage located in the village of Nor Kharpert, and serves 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 their basic care and education.

Excursions for these children to amusement parks and/or other appropriate venues provide these them 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 for these children to 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 Women for Development NGO (WFD NGO) was founded in Gyumri in 1997. Since its establishment the organization has been implementing educational, health care and community development projects in the villages of the Shirak region. Their mission has been to mobilize these communities through increasing community involvement and education.

One of the villages that the WFD NGO is involved with is Tsoghamarg Village located in the Shirak Region of Armenia, 20km from Gyumri. There are 558 residents in the community. Working alongside WFD, village residents came together and built an events hall. Meetings, workshops and events are organized and held in this space. This hall was built to support the community, provide a space to help residents raise and solve existing problems, and to promote the community members’ participation and mobilization. Next to the hall, 110 children from the village play on their new playground set installed with the help of our SERVICE Armenia 2017 group and with support from WFD NGO and Paros donors. In addition, a community library and a ”Tsoghamarg Youth Centre” will also be established in the building.

However, absence of a public restroom is a problem for proper functioning of the events hall and playground. While organizing different events the population faces a problem of discomfort, which in its turn brings about sanitary-hygienic and ecological problems. Next to the events hall there is space where a small Western style restroom can be built. Organizers of events, as well as village residents working in the building and playground will take full responsibility for the use and upkeep of the restrooms. The goal of this project is to provide basic sanitary-hygienic conditions for people during events, as well as people either working or visiting the Tsoghamarg Events Hall. Sponsorship of this project will help construct two Western style restrooms at the Tsoghamarg Events Hall; one for women and one for men.

Dogs of Gyumri (D.O.G.) is Gyumri’s first Animal Welfare and Adoption Center. D.O.G. was started in October 2017 by Sarah Derderian, a Repat who moved to Gyumri two years ago from the United States (US), to take on a position as Assistant Director at the Debi Arach Children’s Center. While filling food terminals for stray dogs around her house, she witnessed a public school security guard kicking and beating a two month old puppy. In an attempt to stop them, she yelled at the guard and took the puppy home. The puppy was later named Luna and adopted by a family from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through her diligent advocacy on social media. Sarah has since established a humanitarian model through which she and her team rescue stray puppies, have them examined by veterinarians, and find loving homes for them both in Armenia and abroad. Since the inception if D.O.G., they have successfully had 20 adoptions in Armenia, US and Canada! The D.O.G. team’s mission is to decrease the population of stray dogs in Gyumri, as well as advocate for the rights of our four-legged friends. In a city that still has a government funded animal kill order, this type of organization is pertinent to saving stray dogs and working towards creating a more humane process by which to deal with this growing issue. In order to help care for the puppies as they wait to be adopted, D.O.G. is launching the Lend a Paw program. For $200 you can sponsor a newly rescued puppy for two months. During these two months the puppies will be placed in a comfortable foster home to temporarily stay at while they wait for their forever home. In addition, their basic needs such as food, treats, and toys will also be provided through the funding. If the puppy you are sponsoring gets adopted the remaining funds will immediately be transferred to the next puppy in need. In the future, the D.O.G. team plans to present a thorough proposal to the Armenian government to put a trap, neuter, vaccinate, and release plan in place, but until then puppy adoptions are a small way that we can make an impact on this huge issue.

The Armenian Dental Society of California and The Paros Foundation have successfully partnered in order to help the mobile dental clinic bring dental care to poverty stricken communities throughout Armenia.

Dr. Viken Garabedian who has worked closely with Drs. Gary Kevorkian and Jack Bayramyan  and the ADSC mobile clinic, is ready to tackle the challenge of bringing expanded dental health to the communities in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor region by adding a second mobile dental clinic.  In partnership with ADSC, the Syunik Development NGO and The Paros Foundation, a second bus will be converted into a mobile dental clinic and serve the isolated and poverty stricken communities in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor region.

Many of the villagers in Vayots Dzor live only a few hundred meters from the Azeri Border.  Many of the men in these villages serve in the army, protecting Armenia’s border.  The harsh and isolated conditions in these areas has forced many of the residents to flee their homes and resettle in the larger neighboring cities.

$30,000 is needed to retrofit the bus with two dental chairs and the proper equipment.  The monthly operating budget for the mobile clinic once it has been put into operation is $3,000 per month.

Border villages in Armenia, such as those in the Tavush region, are plagued with economic hardships and unemployment. These villages have very few options for employment (agriculture, teaching and few municipal positions) and do not have the means to seek training for new professions. For this reason, many of the residents (mainly men) flee to Russia to find employment and stable income. This leaves many women alone in their communities, without a profession and dependent on their husbands/fathers/brothers to send them money from abroad.

With support from The Paros Foundation, two professional training programs in the hairdressing services, manicure tech, makeup and cosmetology have already been successfully implemented. In order to expand the range of opporunities and offer additional viable employment solutions for these women new training courses will be offered in Catering & Food Design and Balloon Decoration. Both of these skills are in high demand since there are limited services for wedding celebrations, anniversaries, high school graduation parties, kindergarten and other events held in several border villages. Currently, village residents turn to businesses in nearby cities for these needs which can be expensive or simply unaffordable for rural community residents.

A benefit of this project is to ensure the villagers can benefit from the services offered to them locally and at an affordable price. Sponsorship is needed in order to fund classes for women from 10 border villages including: Barekamavan, Koti, Voskevan, Voskepar, Baghanis, Djuyevan, Dovegh, Koghb, Berdavan and Zorakan. 18 women will have the opportunity to participate in one of the two classes for the duration of two months, twice a week for tw0-hour class periods.

10 women will be enrolled in the Catering & Food Design classes. In addition to designing students will be taught how to make salads and hors d’oeuvres. The food will be made with fruits, vegetables, sausages, cheese, pastry, sweets, bread, etc. The fresh meals prepared during classes and special table setting and decoration days will be distributed to the local, non-governmental and childcare organizations for free. This will help avoid wasting the food and promoting their services.

Additionally, eight women will be enrolled in the balloon decoration classes. Participants in this course will likely be chosen border village kindergarten staff. It is often necessary to decorate the kindergarten halls, courtyard or rooms during celebrations. In such cases the parents usually raise a certain amount of money to sponsor the work of designers or decorators. The goal of this program is to teach the kindergarten personnel how to decorate for those special events, so that the decorating could be performed by a local expert.

Nerkin Karmir Aghbyur is a village with approximately 1,100 residents in the Bert area of Armenia’s Tavush Region. This community lives on the border with Azerbaijan under the risk of sniper fire and renewed armed conflict.  110 households in Nerkin Karmir Aghbyur, an estimated 500 people, only get water to their homes for 20 minutes every three days. This is because the supply of water to the water pipeline distribution network is not sufficient. To remedy this difficult situation for these families, a lower reservoir will be repaired and filled from an artisan well and pumped to the water distribution network.