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. This project aims to provide a viable employment solution to women from nine border villages in the Tavush region. Women from the villages of Berdavan, Koghb, Dovegh, Djudjevan, Barekamavan, Koti, Voskevan, Zorakan, Voskepar and Baghanis will have the opportunity to participate in an intensive three month training in the areas of hair-dressing, cosmetology, manicure technician and makeup artist. Sponsorship of this project will allow 20 women total (at least one from each village) to participate in the three-month training program. Trainings will be held three times a week for 2.5 hours a day. Students will be trained at a local salon that is approximately equal distance from all of the villages. Tools and supplies will be provided along with some basic business management and marketing classes, and transportations stipends. After completion of the training, participants will receive the necessary equipment they need to work from their home or a salon. They will be encouraged to work in their village and provide services that many villagers may go elsewhere for. These women will greatly benefit from the opportunity to participate in these occupational training courses, which would result in jobs, financial stability for their families and better the economy of their communities. In addition, their success will help empower them through a new sense of independence. This project is modeled after the successes of a pilot project carried out in the village of Koghb. 10 students from 8 border villages took training courses in cosmotolgy and hair-dressing. The project was a great success. The aim of the project was to prepare professionals who would be able to start working and earning their daily living. Upon completion of this program, participants were able to return to their respective villages and have been utilizing their new skills for income.

Paravakar is a border village in Armenia’s Tavush Province. About 1,300 people call Paravakar their home. Because of the threat of Azeri sniper fire, a bridge leading to the city of Berd is uncrossable. Villagers are forced to wind through the Shamshadin mountains to reach Berd, which almost triples their journey. Almost 230 students attend the village’s primary school.  The school was renovated by the Armenian government about ten years ago, however serious leaks in the roof has created a situation whereby the gym is dangerous to enter.

More than 1,200 children live in Armenia’s 15 orphanages. These facilities provide for the children’s basic needs, but their limited budgets do not allow these children to participate in visits to popular historical sites, an amusement park or concert, or attend a cultural event.

Armenia’s orphan children should have the opportunity to experience popular cultural events, exhibits, and excursions in Armenia, or simply have a fun afternoon or activity that they normally would not be able to experience. Many different activities and excursions can be organized for these children. The extent of the activity or trip is directly related to the sponsorship amount. For sponsorships amounts between $250 -$750 approximately 20 children and an appropriate number of chaperons will be able participate in a memorable activity. Please consider supporting multiple excursions for these children.

The Paros Foundation staff and volunteers will organize and oversee the excursion/activity. Opportunities to sponsor excursions for orphanages serving both disabled and non-disabled children exist. Whenever possible, our staff will work with the destination for the excursion to secure group pricing and/or discounts.

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 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.

Over the previous two years, the Margahovit Youth Center has held two successful summer camps for young girls, originally through a Let Girls Learn (LGL) grant from the United States Peace Corps. The purpose of the camp is to address the often overlooked, but important needs of these young girls and help them learn positive ways to cope with stereotypes, anxiety and culturally imposed limitations that have had a negative effect on their daily lives. Due to the success of the initial two Girls’ Leadership and Development (GLAD) Camp, the Margahovit Youth Center is fundraising to implement the camp again, taking lessons and tips from the previous camps, for a different group of participants from Margahovit. The Girls’ Leadership and Development (GLAD) Camp will address several needs by teaching the participants a range of healthy mental, emotional, and physical coping skills to combat stress and by bringing the group closer together in a safe space so that they can form a strong support network going forward.

This year’s camp will be for 15 girls and will be led by community members, Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), and outside experts focusing on a range of aspects related to emotional and mental health and leadership skills, including but not limited to: creating a safe space for discussing these issues; healthy expression of emotion; journaling; yoga; strengths finding; personality tests; and leadership styles. The participants from last year’s GLAD Camp meet monthly for a follow-up club, in part to organize monthly seminars for other youth in the village to pass on what they learned during the camp; participants from this version of GLAD will participate in these activities as well. The community of Margahovit will contribute significantly in planning, implementation, and follow-up work. Their goal is to help participants become more mentally and emotionally healthier, equipped with the tools they need to handle the difficulties life throws at them, and thus do good in school and become stronger leaders.

Since 2011, a group of American and European-Armenian professors and academics have organized and taught advanced one-week long training courses, in Armenia, to graduate students in biology. the courses were developed by Raffi Aroian (University of Massachusetts Medical School) and Haig Alexander Eskandarian (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Their specialty is one coherent course focused on the thematic of host-pathogen interactions, for which Armenia faces critical health problems like chronic tuberculosis brought on by antibiotic persistence or genetic disorders like Familial Mediterranean Fever, for which the role of infectious bacteria play a critical role in disease outcomes. Their goal is to teach Armenian students and researchers the approaches to how science research is conducted for the discovery of fundamental concepts in biology.

In order to begin the courses this group of scientists and researchers raised $7,300 to purchase needed equipment including incubators for culturing and cultivating bacteria, three dissecting microscopes and an upright optical fluorescence microscope for live cell imaging. Their goal has been to train students and researchers to undertake their own experiments using the equipment that they purchased and have donated to Professor Nelli Hovhannisyan’s lab, at Yerevan State University. Nelli’s lab hosts these courses and maintains the instruments. She also offers a select group of talented trained students the opportunity to continue the studies that they sought to begin during our course.

Their ultimate goal is to establish enough physical infrastructures and technical and philosophical knowledge for young researchers taking the courses to be able to build their own research themes and interests out of the experiments that they were taught. The end result would be for the students to publish their own work and eventually apply for research funding in order to continue to pursue their research interests that spawned out of these courses. Currently, they are in need of additional funding in order to continue this program. Sponsorship of this project will help raise the funds needed to purchase additional equipment and the ability to invite groups of professors and young researchers from abroad interested in teaching prolonged lecture and practical training courses to Armenian students and researchers. The equipment they presently need includes one inverted optical phase contrast microscope ($5,000) and a more sophisticated inverted phase contrast fluorescence microscope ($10,000). $10,000 is budgeted for establishing practical advanced training courses with international professors and researchers. This program will provide intensive lecture and practical training courses to graduate students specializing in a field of research related to biomedicine.

The group of professors and researchers include:

Raffi Aroian (University of Massachusetts Medical School)
Diane Barber (University of California, San Francisco)
Haig Alexander Eskandarian (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
Alexander Hajnal (University of Zurich)
Bana Jabri (University of Chicago)
Sarkis Mazmanian (California Institute of Technology)
Erich Schwartz (Cornell University)

Paravakar is a border village in Armenia’s Tavush Province. About 1,300 people call Paravakar their home. Because of the threat of Azeri sniper fire, a bridge leading to the city of Berd is uncrossable. Villagers are forced to wind through the Shamshadin mountains to reach Berd, which almost triples their journey. The kindergarten in Berd currently serves more than 32 children in two groups. Shin construction company from Yerevan renovated two rooms of the kindergarten to house one of these groups. The rest of the building needs renovation including doors and windows, furniture and heating. The entire village of Paravakar has a serious water problem.  This issue will be addressed with the addition of a very large water reservoir for exclusive use by the kindergarten.  The exterior of the kindergarten remains partially exposed to Azerbaijan.

Health care for residents living in Armenia’s remote and/or poverty stricken areas is very hard to find and difficult to afford. Residents in these communities have a high rate of health issues that could otherwise be prevented or cured if they had access to simple medical care. In order to help remedy this unfortunate situation, The Paros Foundation has launched Med-Aid ARMENIA.

Sponsorship of this project will help raise the necessary funds needed to obtain basic medical equipment, supplies and medicine. In-kind donations of any of these items are also welcomed. Furthermore, we specifically need physicians, nurses, pharmacists and more to help our volunteers conduct physical exams and provide basic medical care.

Following the 1988 Spitak Earthquake, 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. Although more than a quarter century has passed since the earthquake, this depressive reality still remains. Currently, more than 1,800 families still live in domiks scattered throughout Gyumri in extreme poverty. Many of them are unable to provide for their familys’ needs including warm clothes, nutritious food, heat and electricity for their homes and other basic necessities.

During his visit to Armenia last summer Dustin Hochmuth, one of the SERVICE Armenia 2017 participants, and several of his peers, witnessed these horrible conditions and decided to assemble packets for 10 families in dire need of everyday necessities and non-perishable food items. This effort was led by one of the SERVICE Armenia 2017 coordinators, Stephanie Nersesyan. Following the success of that effort, Dustin has decided to return to Armenia this summer on the SERVICE Armenia 2018 trip and spearhead his own project to provide similar packets to more families in desperate need.

Dustin is leading the effort to raise enough funds to help 75 families this summer! Each packet will cost $30 and will include basic staples including personal hygiene products, non-perishable food items such as rice, flour, sugar, salt, oil, and pasta. The packets will also include fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products and canned meats. Once in Armenia, Dustin will lead the group throughout the implementations of the project starting with shopping for the items, assembling the packets and distributing the packets themselves to families in need. Donations in any amount will help this important cause.

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 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.