Armenian Children

[Anileve]

Not that we haven't read or heard this before but I decided to go ahead and post such information. Do any of you know any local organizations here in the US as well as Hayastan that specializes in providing aid to the children in the outskirts of Armenia? I am mainly interested in the conditions outside of Yerevan and which organizations can be collaborated with without going through the channels of the government. And who can be a good speaker on such issues? I am also interested in the statistics of the children with illnesses such as cancer and mental illness and other disabilities, as well as the percentage of orphans. It's a bit difficult to find solid sources that are genuinely interested in helping children without some hidden personal agenda and some money pocketed. Any information on any of these issues will be immensely appreciated.

 

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Armenia's disintegration blackens outlook for its children

 

 

19 March 2001 -- Post-earthquake, post-war, and post-Soviet Armenia is a country beset by aftershock: Its citizens are leaving in droves, and its children are bearing the brunt of failure.

 

Naira Avetisyan's memory of the Armenian earthquake: "I will never forget the smell of sugar mixed with blood. All these horribly injured people on the helicopters, covered with coagulating sweet liquid, the streets filled with sugar."

 

It was midnight, 7 December 1988, the first night of many airlifts to come, and as a young medical intern Naira was airlifting casualties in military helicopters from the ruined town of Spitak for treatment in the capital. "Many just died during the flight. We had no drugs. There was nothing left in the town, nothing apart from bodies and grieving people."

 

The once prosperous manufacturing town of Spitak was at the epicentre of an earthquake that killed 25,000 people in this southern Caucasian country a dozen years ago. Around 16,000 people perished in Spitak as flimsy Soviet apartment buildings caved in on one another and the town's sugar processing plant imploded in a cloud of white icing sugar and concrete slabs.

 

Today, the rebuilt quarters of Armenian towns are reminiscent of the help that poured into the country at the time - the Italian, French, and Uzbek quarters, the Czech School, the Italian hospital, the British Lord Byron School. The world gave generously to pull people from the rubble, to clear the shattered buildings and to rebuild houses.

 

But there is something unchanged about the brooding groups of unemployed and unshaven men hugging every corner of every town and village in this region, as if the earthquake had occurred only a year or two ago: The growing malnutrition; the desperate poverty; the flimsy metal huts that house half the population in towns like Spitak; the general lack of security that seems to pervade daily existence for most people: all these factors conspire to give an atmosphere of numb shock and sadness.

 

Yet Armenia receives one of the highest levels of American government aid, second only per head of population to Israel. And it is clear from what one writer has called the "enclave development" of wealthy suburbs of Armenia and the banks, restaurants and car showrooms of downtown Yerevan, that a portion of the population is benefiting from the corruption and cronyism that typifies Armenia, along with many post-Soviet societies.

 

 

From a population of 3.5 million in 1989, it is thought that somewhere between 800,000 and 1.2 million people have left the country to try their luck abroad. This includes around half of the 300,000 Armenian refugees displaced from neighbouring Azerbaijan during the three year war fought between these two southern Caucasus countries as the Soviet Union disintegrated. The fertility rate of women has plummeted to less than half it's 1990 rate. Towns and villages are recording zero or negative birth rates. Women are choosing to terminate pregnancy in unprecedented numbers. One aid worker identified a woman who had had almost 40 abortions. People exchange air tickets to Moscow for their apartments.

 

Preliminary indicators from a UNICEF-conducted nutrition survey in Armenia suggest that malnutrition has tripled to 12 per cent of children up to the age of five, reaching almost one fifth among Armenia's huge refugee population. Stunting is easy to ascertain from the ages of abnormally short children.

 

Gohar says she would leave Spitak, and Armenia tomorrow if she could, and if her husband was willing to abandon his ailing parents and impoverished family. She admits that with a husband earning $80 a month she is "one woman out of a thousand in this country, but I would leave tomorrow if I could. I'm so tired of my life." The flimsy and cramped box hut in which she lives, built as temporary refuge after the earthquake, was where her young child was killed, scalded to death by a pot of boiling water overturned from the clumsily constructed stove that sits in the centre of the room.

 

Gohar suffers from a rare genetic disorder, and was meant to be receiving drugs for free, but a medical system in a state of collapse has meant demands for payment for the treatment, which she cannot afford. Nor can she afford the increasing demands of a disintegrating education system for her two step-children.

 

For the first time last year, Armenia's government funded less than 30 per cent of the nation's health budget. The education budget has been reduced to a quarter of its 1990 level. One hospital director freely admits that patients are illegally charged for drugs, "since that is the only way that we can afford to keep our doors open."

 

The steep increase in maternal mortality is directly attributed to reduced health expenditure. Teachers and health workers report of intermittent salaries for the past two years. "Nothing this year. Paid for the month of January last year. And up to August of 1999," says the director of the Gyumri district maternity hospital Dr. Felix Grigorian. "The whole health system has collapsed." Malaria has re-emerged in Armenia for the first time in 30 years, with 2000 cases reported in 1999 (some even on the outskirts of the capital city of Yerevan).

 

The United Nations says that one third of Armenia's population is living in "extreme poverty," surviving on less than $1 per day. More than two thirds of the population is classified as "poor." An estimated 20 to 30 per cent of the population is unemployed. When work comes, it is often short-term, badly paid, with long hours and no weekends, often for months on end.

 

The country relies on remittances from families working abroad. Families are divided by husbands working in Russia, who as often as not never return. According to the International Organization for Migration Armenia has now become a point of origin, rather than just a transit point for prostitution. Women are reported by families and their children as working as "maids in rich houses," or "Moscow," or "on sewing contracts in Istanbul," all probable euphemisms for sex work in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Although no one will say it to her, an aid worker admits that orphanage-bound Lilit's mother might well number amongst those women.

 

UNICEF Communication Officer Gohar Khojayan says that, "The education and health sectors are falling apart, but there is a limit to what we can do." Underpaid, demoralized, and outmoded teachers are using decades-old books to teach children in rotting buildings with no school supplies from the government. Parents are expected to pay for admissions to university. The government's concept of education reform is to divest itself of responsibility for pre-school education and children's institutions by handing formal responsibility over to penniless district councils.

 

Organizations like UNICEF are struggling to meet the demands of increasing numbers of marginalized people. "More and more people are falling through the system," says Gohar. UNICEF has maintained the immunization of children, one of the few sectors of the health system to advance in the past five years, and due to lack of funding is concentrating on advocacy for schools and institutions for disabled and abandoned children. "We carry a lot of weight here because we have been consistent and successful with our programmes, but we have to be realistic, living with the constraints of a society in crisis, where enormous changes are taking place."

 

Gohar sighs. "Not that realism is helpful for children. Ten years of neglect is a short time for a state, but a lifetime sentence for a child."

 

© UNICEF/Armenia/Weiss

[THOTH]

Very very sad...thanks for the post. And yes - with such corruption though - it reeally makes one hesitant to do anything (unless you can directly help folks)...as you know that much of what is given is going to be siphoned away in various forms...even (I might even say especially) when one gives througfh the church (a mistake that I have made in the past...)

 

But yes very touching accuonts...and some are just unconsionable...especially the increses in poverty and the decline in avaialble health care...decline in education....just what is Armenia comming to?

[edward demian]

The only effective charity is direct one. What i do is: I ask all my fat wealthy and vain friends to bring me their unneeded clothing. Shoes that are out of style, pants that won't stretch , brasiers that are no longer appropriate etc., etc.. I send about 4 to 6 boxes[u-haul movung boxes.] about twice a year to my relatives directly. Then they sell or exchange the contents of my boxes with others. It makes a difference. You want to help. Just send anything you can get your hands on. The clothing should be clean. Not cat smell, no tabbacco or mildew smell, no stains or ripps. So I often have to wash the stuff I send. Washing there is a problem. I pay a fellow shipper here about 50 cents per Lbs. A pair of $300 shoes that weighs three lbs will cost me $1.50 to send there, but she may be able so sell or trade them for $5.00 which is half of a monthly pension . You can get together and send a whole Container load to Armenia for about $3000.00 However, there never is anyone trusworthy. Anyone you send the stuff to, will cherry pick the boxes and leave only what they don't like. Even among close relatives. So you have to have names. You can ask for lists of refugee families living in those steel containers and send a care pckage to each in the container. Then they will trade and exchange articles among themselves.

Good Luck.

[Nakharar]

There is a charity based in New York "Children of Armenia Fund" which was founded by Garo Armen the chairman of Antigenics. Their main activity currently is landmine clearance in Armenia and Karabagh. They have another program where doctors and nurses in Armenia are trained to understand child development and to recognize the need for early diagnosis of childhood illnesses. Their aim is to train 800 pediatricians and 800 nurses throughout Armenia. You can discount corruption since all administrative and operational costs are borne by Garo Armen himself.

 

 

Children of Armenia Fund

630 Fifth Ave., Suite 2100, New York, NY 10111

For more information, please call 212-994-8250

[AraManoogian]

I’m not sure what you want to do as far as helping children on the outskirts and what resources you have, but if your interested in helping children in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh), I’m here on the ground and have a registered organization that can help you get what you want to where it needs to get with very low administrative costs.

 

As for statistics, you may want to visit www.oneworld.am and contact Onnik, the webmaster, who is also working on a project to document the condition of families in need and should have the information you are looking for.

 

As for sending large quantities of clothes and goods, if you are sending them where they have to pass customs (which a container would defiantly have to pass customs), they could be subject to import tax, that is if you send them to an individual.

 

I’m always of the mind that we need to implement programs that will create long-term solutions to the problem that is causing so much poverty and hardship. If we do this, then the rest will be up to the natives. Could you have something like this in mind to do?

[MJ]

Dear anileve,

 

There are a couple of organizations in US. One is called (if I am not mistaken) "Children of Armenia."

 

As to statistics, while I don't have such statistics, in my possession there is a record of about 60 children in Armenia and Karabakgh, who as a result of stepping on landmines or playing with unexploded shells (left behind by the moving around sloppy ...Armenian troops) have lost their limbs and/or sight. Currently efforts are underway to organize medical help for these children - if possible in Armenia, and if it is a too complicated case, to bring them over to US for medical help. The situation is also grave in mental institutes.

 

So, if your non-profit is looking for projects outside Yerevan, I can suggest a couple of them, where much help is needed. Please let me know through PM if you would need more details and can shore up some additional assistance.

Edited December 31, 2003 by MJ

[Angelina]

Hi Anileve,

 

If you would like to make a contribution visit this site http://www.armenianow.com/2003/december12/home/.

[Anileve]

Wow thank you guys for all of your great contribution. Yes I have heard of the Armenian Children’s Fund, yet I am looking for something maybe smaller and not tainted with popularity and extreme funding. Also I am having a hard time coming across the statistics of children with illnesses in Armenia. The information doesn’t seem to be available. I was considering going to Armenia soon and visiting villages and outskirts rather than partying in the capital. I grew up in the center, thus I saw everything I had to see, now it is time to discover the unknown, since it is the only way to know the real truth, with my own eyes.