Choratan is a village of 900 residents located in the Berd Consolidated Community within Armenia’s Tavush Region.  Choratan is located in an isolated section along the Armenian border with Azerbaijan.  

Through the support of FAR, a new heating system was installed throughout the school including new boilers, pipes and radiators, however the main gas connection to the school was not installed.  The Paros Foundation received a request from the Governor’s office in Tavush to help fund the installation of the gas pipeline to the school in Choratan.  

 

Once funded, the gas company will install a new gas connection to this remote village school to enable the heating system to operate.  In addition, this will allow the school to stop burning wood to keep the classrooms heated.  It is expected that it will take one month from the time of funding to complete the work.

 

Verin Tsakhavan is a village in Berd area of Armenia’s Tavush Region. It is home to more than 900 residents. To help provide drinking water to the village, their main water supply was augmented with an additional supply via pump.  This has caused increased pressure in the main distribution pipe to the village and is causing the existing pipe to continuously burst in several places.  The pipe needs to be replaced along a 200 meter section to fix this situation and provide water to the community.  

By using sport for social impact, Girls of Armenia Leadership Soccer (GOALS) aims to equip youth with confidence and resilience to face and resolve challenges both on and off the field.

Our goal is:

• To initiate and create a network of Soccer Leagues, After-School Clubs, and Summer Camps in different parts of Armenia and Artsakh
• To challenge and break down existing barriers of girls playing sports
• To build a culture of empathy, kindness, and respect
• To shape future leaders of change

The past couple of years have not been easy for Armenia and Artsakh. With the global pandemic and the war, we as a people have gone through many difficulties. But we are strong and we will persevere in the face of adversity. Through all of this GOALS has been able to maintain its social programming for girls and boys across Armenia and Artsakh. In 2021 we were able to engage and directly impact the lives of over 1000 girls across 8 regions in Armenia. With the launch of the Assarian Relief initiative we were able to provide sports programs to boys and girls that had been displaced because of the war both in Yerevan and across border villages in Syunik, we were even able to launch GOALS in Artsakh with 4 co-ed sports teams. 

As we look forward to 2022 our aim is to expand the quality of services we provide to our girls. This would include engaging our youth as leaders and coaches, providing in-depth trainings, frequent face to face on-site visits and most importantly the expansion of our reach especially in Artsakh. 

Your donations will be used towards obtaining and distributing sports gear, organizing after-school sports clubs, trainings, tournaments, and all sports-related operational costs. 

The Ghoghanj Children’s Center located in the Kentron of Yerevan provides afterschool and summer school programs for approximately 85 children every month. Children who attend the Center are loosely defined as “at risk.” These children typically come from very poor households, often times with a single head of household, who cannot pay for such assistance. The goal of the Ghoghanj Children’s Center is to provide the necessary academic, psychological and social support to ensure that the children attending mature to well adjusted, successful, young adults.

In order to further impact more “at-risk” children, the Center has identified a need for this model to be replicated and offered to other communities in Armenia. Through the generous support of the Dadourian Foundation, a second center for “at-risk” children was opened in 2014 in the Nor Nork neighborhood of Yerevan to provide support to 85 additional children annually. The new center has provided students the same core classes daily (English, Russian, Computer, Design, Painting, Theater and Dance) as the Ghoghanj Children’s Center – Kentron. The goal of this project is to broaden the services offered to socially vulnerable children and families in other communities and provide them with the proper support and guidance needed to excel in school and become self-confident and respectful young adults.

Amount will include rent, utilities, teacher salaries, maintenance and additional improvements, and supplies.

The National Agrarian University is a joint partner in this project. The greenhouse will be essential for the full training of the students during the course of the academic year. Further, the forestry professors and graduate students will conduct various research on part of the surface. The rest of the surface will be tended by our workers to grow various seedlings aimed for our reforestation projects.

We will build a 3,300 square foot greenhouse on the grounds of the National Agrarian University in Vanadzor. The greenhouse will have an automatic irrigation system. In addition, we will build 30 metal tables to support 1500 boxes for plant containers and develop our own design for a seedling container. Each table will support 3,000 containers containing one seedling each. The total capacity of the greenhouse is 90,000 seedlings. If the budget is fully raised, we would like to have two sets of 90.000 containers in order to allow two shifts per year.

The greenhouse will enable us to have a greater variety of forest tree seedlings including some rare and endangered species. This is very important in order to increase bio-diversity in the forests. It will also improve the success ratio of the plants in the afforestation areas as the saplings will go in the ground with soil around their roots.

The Greenhouse budget includes the construction of the actual greenhouse, the installation of an irrigation system, tables, containers and the required shading nets. Details are available upon request.

Getahovit is a village just outside of Ijevan in Armenia’s Tavush Region. This community is home to more than 2,000 residents. Getahovit’s school is in terrible condition and needs a complete renovation. The school was built in 1971 and serves 250 children in the first to twelfth grades. The community of Getahovit and the school’s leadership has tried to maintain the school the best they can given their extremely limited resources. However, crumbling plaster, lack of heating and non-functioning bathrooms make for a terrible environment for these children to learn. To properly renovate the school, this large project will be addressed in phases. Firstly, the school needs to have a functioning heating system prior to the start of winter. This effort, combined with the repair of the school’s roof, changing of the balance of old windows and the start of renovations one of the school’s wings including classrooms and bathrooms will serve as a huge source of inspiration for this community. To kick off this important project, Hovhannes Mardirossian and his wife Anahit, whose mother taught at the school for 45 years, have announced a matching challenge grant for phase one renovations. For every dollar raised towards this effort, they will contribute a matching amount up to $25,000 for a total of $50,000 for phase one!

Economic opportunities for rural Armenian communities are scarce.  These opportunities along Armenia’s border frontier with Azerbaijan are even more limited.  To help address this important issue, The Paros Foundation has launched several initiatives aimed at job creation in rural communities.  This includes planting more than 800 fruit-bearing trees, establishing a large scale rabbit farm, fertilizer production, small animal feed production and honey production.  These economic development opportunities are all administered under the auspices of the Aygepar Business Incubator, which provides rent-free space, sanitary conditions and marketing and technical expertise to local businesses.

The Paros Foundation has launched a high quality honey production just outside of the village of Verin Tsakhavan in the Berd area of Armenia’s Tavush Region with 50 bee hives.  The immediate goal is to grow this production to 200 bee hives over the next two years to create commercially viable quantities of high-altitude, raw honey.  This will lead to expanded job creation and opportunities in the market place as all components of this important project are manufactured locally in the Armenian market including hives, bee families, wax starter sheets and concrete block stands.  Even the glass jars for sale are manufactured in Armenia!

One complete hive and bee colony costs $250. New hives and colonies will be added to expand the total number in the spring. Individuals that sponsor a complete hive will receive one jar of honey from this year’s harvest, a certificate indicating what number hive was established with their support and the opportunity to personalize their honey jar. Please follow this link to personalize your jar of honey: https://forms.gle/Wv1ejDr8QL4yVo3PA

The village of Hatsik is located about ten minutes from the city of Armavir in Armenia’s Armavir region about 60 kilometers from Yerevan. Hatsik is home to 2,560 residents. The village has one school with 260 children in attendance. In 2013, The Paros Foundation and its SERVICE Armenia program began the renovation of one of the two buildings on campus. Over the course of four years, renovations were made to three bathrooms, twelve classrooms, the hallways, gym and locker room. The facade of the building was also repaired. The school’s auditorium needs to be renovated to facilitate school gathers and performances. This renovation will include the replacement of the windows and doors, rebuilding of the stage, new electrical, new paint and new seating. The renovation will also include the cosmetic renovation of the hall immediately in front of the entrance to the auditorium.

The site of the Terchoonian Home, located in Gyumri Armenia, holds great historical significance. It was an orphanage during the Armenian Genocide managed by the Near East Relief, a social and economic development organization established in 1915. It later became a military headquarters for the Soviet army. In 1988, the building was heavily damaged during the devastating Spitak Earthquake. Due to support by the Terchoonian Family, and the hard work and dedication of the late Archbishop Mesrob Ashjian and Romen Gozmoyan, the building was purchased and renovated. The Terchoonian Home Orphanage opened its doors again in 2003 through the generous donation by the Terchoonian Family honoring the late Vahan Terchoonian. The Terchoonian Family chose Gyumri as it was the city Terchoonian found refuge in after escaping from Turkey, before eventually immigrating to the United States.

Today, the orphanage houses 84 children and operates a school that serves a total of 115 children with 54 individuals on staff. This historic building, specifically its third floor, is in need of emergency repairs prior to another harsh Gyumri winter. Sponsorship of this project will help urgently complete renovations, which include repairs to fix several leaks in the roof, replacement of 32 windows on the third floor (several of which have been boarded up because there is no glass in them or they don’t close), new doors for the third floor corridor (at each staircase), balcony, bedrooms and classrooms, and new carpeting for the rooms with water damage where children stay. Furthermore, the exterior walls on the third floor are made of asbestos panels, which have been poorly installed, are not water tight and have caused the third floor carpeting in the rooms to become damp and foul over time. The asbestos panels will be replaced with a new exterior wall that will be weather/water tight. Additional repairs are also needed, such as repairs to water pipes and partial renovation of two bathrooms (including drain pipes and the addition of a shower stall), but will be addressed after the above urgent needs are met. These renovations to the orphanage are important to not only keep the children and staff safe, warm and protected from illnesses that may arise due to poor conditions, but also to help preserve a building that holds such significance for Armenian history in its walls.

In 2013, a Peace Crops volunteer first submitted the Zorakan village school as a potential Paros project. The school needs an extensive remodel. The school’s campus includes a large two story building which houses the While the Tavush regional government recently installed a new roof at the school, we need to complete the renovation. The scope of work includes installing a new heating system, new windows and doors in 14 classrooms, three new bathrooms (teachers, boys and girls), renovations throughout two hallways (upstairs and downstairs), new furniture, new flooring installation, paint and electrical work. The school will be renovated in two phases.  Phase one will completely renovate the second floor and will include the installation of the heating system. The school campus also includes a second large building that use to house the gymnasium, but this building must be torn down and rebuilt due to structural problems. This project will focus only on the building which houses the classrooms.

The remote village of Zorakan located in Armenia’s Tavush region has a population of about 1,000 people. It was populated by Azeris until 1988 and had a different name, Verin Kerpilu. During an armed conflict, the Azeri population fled the village and Armenian refuges from Azerbaijan were placed in the village. At the time, the entire village population was refugees from Azerbaijan; they later changed the name to Zorakan in honor of two marshals from their home village Chardakhlu. There are approximately 270 households, most of the villagers cannot find work outside their homes and survive by making a living from their land, from their gardens and fruit trees. Some of the husbands (and single men) find work in Russia and are gone much of the year, leaving their wives to raise the families. There are 135 children who attend the secondary school along with 26 teachers and technical workers. Along with the school, the village has a mayor’s office, a post office, four small stores, a health post and a culture house.

The budget to renovate and furnish this two story building of the school is $125,000.

Phase one efforts will include renovations to the second floor classrooms hallway. Funding for phase one is $55,000. Second phase work will be determined based on the response from the government regarding their participation.