Amenia Blog carries an ArmenPress story on unemployment in Armenia which is rather misleading given the true state of the local economy. Sure, there is economic growth, but it’s registered only in a few select areas of the economy, and we still have the perennial problem of the distribution of any wealth that is generated. […]
Infant House, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia © EveryChild / Onnik Krikorian 2005
Just as I was starting to wonder what I’d be doing before the parliamentary elections are upon us, some good news. It might be that I’ll be returning to Georgia in the near future to do more work on social vulnerability there. Last time […]
Lernamerdz, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Eurasianet 2006
Today marked the 89th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and an assignment from Eurasianet saw me visit the Armenian village of Lernamerdz with Marianna Grigoryan, a journalist from Armenia Now. After writing for IWPR on the village, affectionately known as “Little Cuba,” Marianna has […]
Anahit & Varsenik, Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2000
A rather short interview with the Head of the Department of Social
Welfare, Labor and Employment for the Kashatagh Region sandwiched between Karabakh proper and Armenia has now been published by the Armenian News Network-Groong.
OK: What qualifies as a multiple number […]
Oshagan, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1999
It seems like everybody loves villages in Armenia, and who can blame them? Indeed, when Yerevan gets too much most of the city’s population takes time out by relaxing in them if not holidaying in Sevan or Batumi and Kobuleti. Even so, […]
Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006
While in Lachin I made a return visit to the AGAPE Children’s Home to speak to its Director Samuel Kocharian. The institution which is generally referred to as a Boarding School by locals was established in 1995 and accomodates 27 children deprived […]
Gavar, Gegharkunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Habitat for Humanity 2006
One of the recurring themes that I’ve worked on at Hetq Online has been homelessness, and have made frequent posts on the same subject matter on this blog. However, while many people in Armenia consider homelessness to only mean those living on […]
Tuberculosis Dispensary, Abovian, Kotayk Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006
When Nessuna over at di cavoli di re mentioned that she was going to be visiting some children at the Tuberculosis Dispensary in Abovian and asked if I would like to accompany her, I jumped at the chance to see inside the country’s main treatment center for the disease. I’m hoping that Nessuna will blog about her visit later, and when she does, I’ll change this post and quote from her, but until then, just to say that the problem of tuberculosis in Armenia is a real one.
The disease is pretty much linked to living conditions and poverty although it is believed that many more people carry the disease in a passive form.
Tuberculosis is one of the most deadly and common major infectious diseases today. As of 2004, 14.6 million people have active TB disease with nine million new cases of the disease and nearly two million deaths, [1] mostly in developing countries. However, developed countries are not spared the burden of tuberculosis. There is a rising number of people in the developed world who contract tuberculosis because they have compromised immune systems, typically as a result of immunosupressive drugs or HIV/AIDS. These people are at particular risk of tuberculosis infection and active tuberculosis disease.
Most of those infected (90%) have asymptomatic latent TB infection (LTBI). There is a 10% lifetime chance that LTBI will progress to TB disease which, if left untreated, will kill more than 50% of its victims. TB is one of the top four infectious killing diseases in the world: TB kills 1.7 million, and malaria kills 2-3 million.
HIV/AIDS, the neglect of TB control programs, and immigration have caused a resurgence of tuberculosis. Multiple drug resistant strains of TB (MDR-TB) and Extreme Drug-Resistance in Tuberculosis (XDR-TB) are emerging. The World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency in 1993, and the Stop TB Partnership proposed a Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis which aims to save an additional 14 million lives between 2006 and 2015.
Unfortunately, nobody knows how many people fall victim to tuberculosis in Armenia, but there are very definite concerns, and not not least with regards to Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) TB. The French Wing of Medecins Sans Frontieres have responded to these fears by launching a programme to tackle the problem of MDR TB in Abovian and Yerevan since 2005.
MSF will also rehabilitate and re-equip special laboratories and ambulatory rooms in polyclinics situated in the Malatia-Sebastia ( Bangladesh ) and Shengavit districts of Yerevan as well as diagnostic departments in two tuberculosis dispensaries. A special department for the treatment of MDR Tuberculosis will be established jointly with the Ministry of Health in the Republican Tuberculosis Dispensary situated in Abovian.
Additionally, during this new four year programme that is scheduled to run until 2008, MSF will provide specialized training for medical personal. After construction and rehabilitation work is complete, MSF anticipates treating the first patients in February or March next year. Social and psychological support for patients and their families will also be provided as part of the programme.
According to the Ministry of Health there are 6,000 cases of Tuberculosis in Armenia but the actual number is thought to be much higher. As a result, Christian Ferrier, the current Head of Mission for MSF (France) says that a survey will also be conducted during 2005 to form a clearer picture of the problem.
[…]
“In resource-poor countries like Armenia it is impossible to cure people infected with multi-resistant tuberculosis. That is why we have decided to embark on the implementation of this program,” Ferrier told journalists present at the press conference.
Ishkan, Kharberd, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004
Today’s visit wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered TB in Armenia and it probably won’t be the last. In 2004 I took Edik Baghdasarian, Editor-in-Chief of Hetq Online, to meet one sufferer in Kharberd, a village situated literally a few minutes outside of Yerevan. At that time, Ishkan wanted his identity kept secret and so Edik used a pseudonym, but doctors at the Abovian dispensary found out and apparently threatened him for telling Hetq that drugs that should be available free of charge, as dictated by the law, were instead being sold to patients.
If I buy medicine it will cost me 4,000 drams a day. Just figure out how much that comes to per year. How am I supposed to pay for it? I had a beat up old car; I sold it. I’m missing one lung, and I only have half of the other one left. What should I do? I just have to bear it for a few months and then die,” Aram said, hopelessly. He also told us about what really goes on at the Abovyan T.B. Hospital . Even there, Aram was unable to get the medicine that was supposed to be his free of charge. “They would sign the medicine out in my name and then sell it to me. If only they had the conscience to charge me 400 drams instead of 800.”
[…]
After receiving his treatment at the hospital, Aram ’s condition improved. To pay for it, Aram sold his old car, and his sister sold her two piglets. Now they have no more money, and no possibility for further treatment. “When I receive treatment I feel better. If I continue it will help, but how can I continue?” Aram Martirosyan asked.
Now, Ishkan’s anonymity is unimportant because he died from the disease soon afterwards. The same year I also took a visiting academic from the Diaspora, Asbed Kotchikian, and RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan to a run-down hostel in the Erebuni District of the Armenian capital where we ran into another sufferer. Emil wrote a story on the woman and even managed to get her medical treatment.
A single woman facing starvation in a rundown residential complex in Yerevan has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and hospitalized by medical authorities after they were alerted by RFE/RL.
Zarik Hakobian, 44, is one of several hundred low-income residents of a former factory hostel in the city’s southern Erebuni district reduced to a slum dwelling after years of government neglect and indifference. She shares its damp and disease-prone ground floor with about a dozen families mired in extreme poverty.
They said last week they have long suspected that Hakobian, a white-haired skeletal woman who looks much older, is suffering from TB. Their fears were borne out by doctors from a local policlinic who visited and examined her several days later, following an instruction from the health care department of the Yerevan municipality.
The head of the policlinic, Marieta Andreasian, told RFE/RL that Hakobian was taken to a special tuberculosis clinic in Abovian, a town north of Yerevan, early on Monday. She said all of the woman’s neighbors, among them small children, will now be checked for symptoms of the potentially deadly disease which has spread dramatically in Armenia in recent years.
Andreasian confirmed that poor living conditions and a lack of sanitation were the main cause of the TB infection. “Tuberculosis is a social disease that results from poverty,†she said.
For reasons still unknown, Zarik Hakobian didn’t stay long at the Abovian Dispensary and was back at the hostel a few days later. She died less than a month after that.
Zarik Hakobian, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004
Still, to end on a brighter note, conditions at the Abovian TB Dispensary were not as bad as I was expecting and the children were being treated free of charge although parents were of course expected to supply food for their kids and to provide round the clock attention. However, this is unfortunately the norm for Armenia’s under-financed health sector.
Specialized Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
Since 2002, one of my main projects has been the issue of children enrolled into state-run residential institutions. Despite its smaller size, somewhere between 11-12,000 children attend or reside in over 50 boarding schools and children’s homes in Armenia. In neighboring Georgia, where initiatives to de-institutionalize children are years ahead of Armenia, there are only 5,000. It’s therefore with great interest that I read ArmeniaNow.com’s article on plans to close 12 specialized boarding schools.
Angry teachers have condemned a government decision to close secondary schools for nearly 1,000 orphaned and socially vulnerable children.
Officials in the Ministry of Education and Science want to integrate children in the 12 special secondary institutions into mainstream schools. They argue that separate schools for orphans and other children who lack proper parental care simply isolates them from the rest of society.
But staff in the schools insist that their children face special problems and that closure will damage their emotional and educational welfare.
According to the government’s decision, the special schools should be converted into regular secondary schools by the end of 2007. Special boarding centers would be created to meet the needs of children who were unable to go home.
“These children are by no means deficient compared to their peers, they don’t need special education; so why separate them from the society?! Implementation of this decision will integrate them into society,†says Louiza Gharibyan, representative of the Agency for Family Issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues.
However, I don’t like the use of the word “orphans” in this article because the vast majority of children attending specialized boarding schools have parents and families. Instead, these kids attend boarding schools generally intended for children with disabilities because they can receive food, and even though these schools have facilities for children to stay overnight, most attend on a daily basis or at the very least return to their families at weekends. Nevertheless, the Directors of such schools are not happy with plans to close or convert them.
“It will be the same with these schools as it was with the vocational colleges when they closed them and now spend huge sums to restore them,†says Simon Simonyan, Principal of the Yerevan Special School for Orphans and Children Deprived of Parental Care # 3.
Simonyan believes there is still a need in this type of school and it will be possible to close them only in 10 to 15 years, when social conditions in Armenia have improved.
“You will simply kick 1,000 children into the street by eliminating this type of school, for many here are on the edge of delinquency and need special attention and pedagogical work, something an ordinary school cannot provide,†he says.
Samvel Mktrchyan, Principal at the Special School #7, thinks that the problems faced by these children will not disappear because of the entrance into force of this new law. They exist and need special attention, he says.
“There is no need to develop theories, just look at the reality with an open mind. Children of this category cannot integrate into a group of well-off and indulged children; they will not go to ordinary school,†says Mkrtchyan.
According to Mktrchyan the main reasons for not going to a mainstream school are social and psychological.
“Take the simplest situation: the pupil will not able to pay for textbooks, will not be able to pay for a party with the class, and will not be able to take part in buying a present for a teacher. This will isolate him from school and society even more, a bigger psychological complex will develop in him, more than it would if he had stayed in this kind of school,†Mktrchyan explains.
Specialized Boarding School, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
Sorry to sound cynical, but they would say that as these children represent their livelihood. Indeed, there is no question that most of these schools should be closed down. After all, such establishments don’t exist in the West where alternative models of care exist for children that are really deprived of parental care. For example, there is fostering and kinship care or integration into and normal schools, and it is these models that the Armenian government, international organizations and the World Bank are now looking at. I touched upon this in a recent article for UNICEF.
“There are many reasons why children with parents are deprived of parental care in Armenia,” explains Avetisyan. “First of all there is poverty, then centralization of special education within the boarding school system and finally, the absence of alternatives and community-based support services for vulnerable families at risk.”
In 2000, UNICEF invited an international consultant to conduct a study on residential care institutions in Armenia.
Based on the recommendations of the resulting report, alternatives to institutionalization were discussed in round table discussions with the Ministries of Health, Education, Social Welfare, Justice and Police. A three year plan of action was developed and UNICEF, the Armenian Government and NGOs collaborated together on the implementation of a work plan.
[…]
Now, the Armenian Government is interested in de-institutionalization through family reintegration, foster care and the prevention of institutionalization through community-based support centers. It has also developed a law that obliges the state to provide support to “graduates” from Children’s Homes once they reach the age of 18.
“Even if you create excellent conditions in the institution, when the children leave this artificial environment they have no life skills or the capacity to deal with daily problems,” Avetisyan says. “For example, studies show that as a result, many of these children end up in conflict with the law and some girls become prostitutes and are more prone to trafficking.”
Specialized Boarding School, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
Perhaps the main issue that many overlook is that the majority of children enrolled into specialized boarding schools intended for kids with disabilities are actually not disabled at all. At the same time, those children with disabilities are often prevented from attending schools set up for them because it is easier for teachers to deal with “normal” children instead even if it means that they will not develop their full potential. Again, I touched upon this in an article written in 2002.
A mother waits patiently to enroll her son at an Auxiliary Boarding School for children with learning disabilities somewhere in the heart of the Armenian capital. It doesn’t seem to matter to the staff that the twelve-year old isn’t disabled, all the school requires, the Director says, is a medical certificate.
But, with salaries low in the medical sector, many doctors are all too willing to provide fake diagnosis to parents wishing to enroll their children into residential institutions. In fact, Dennis Loze, Project Coordinator for Mission East’s Mosaic Program in Armenia says that 85% of children already residing in Auxiliary Boarding Schools are falsely diagnosed.
“They are accepting children with no problem whatsoever because parents cannot afford to clothe and feed them,” he says, adding that Mission East had to literally fight to have three children with Down’s syndrome admitted into one boarding school after being told by the Director that she now only accommodated ‘normal’ children.
Suspicions that this was not the case were later confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Science. However, so serious is the problem that the Armenian Government has decided to address the issue in a national program of actions targeted towards the protection of children’s rights, including reform of the admission system.
“With the declining level of services in residential institutions, the current trend is creating an underclass of children marked by poverty, stigmatization and a lack of proper care and education who are likely to lack opportunity as adults,” writes Aleksandra Posarac and Jjalte Sederlof in the World Bank’s Armenian Child Welfare Note for June 2002.
“To the extent that such children end up in institutions for the mentally disabled, which offer only a special education syllabus for children with mental disability,” they continue, “their development will be seriously hampered by lack of educational opportunities.”
Boarding Schools were established during the soviet era for children with developmental, physical and emotional disabilities and while a 1985 Soviet Decree permitted the admission of children from vulnerable families into Secondary Boarding Schools, Auxiliary Boarding Schools were only meant to cater for children with specific medical or psychological needs.
But, with a sizeable proportion of the population living below the poverty line, many families are increasingly looking to residential institutions to provide what the First Deputy Minister of Social Security, Ashot Yesayan, calls in a report to be published by Family Support America next year, “the primary ‘social safety-net’ for their children.”
[…]
“Children are removed from their families as the only alternative to remaining hungry,” says Nicholas McCoy, the author of the report. “Even if that means committing them to a residential institution or sending them out onto the streets to work, research shows that vulnerable children are not necessarily the victims of earthquake and war but come primarily from economically deprived families.”
Specialized Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
At the Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Yerevan, for example, only 40 percent of the kids can’t see. The rest are from socially vulnerable families. In other cases, international organizations have had to fight to get children with disabilities enrolled into the very institutions they’re meant to be, although that’s not to say that many couldn’t be integrated into mainstream education.
I also have good reason to suspect that the best interests of the children are furthest from the mind of staff at some boarding schools. One international aid worker gave me an example of this four years ago, although one hopes this the exception rather than the rule.
[…] while Children’s Homes in Armenia have received substantial support from the large Armenian Diaspora, conditions in over fifty Boarding Schools have deteriorated considerably since independence. One Director, for example, is believed to keep conditions as bad as possible in order to attract extra finance from international organizations working in the republic — money that the children will never see.
“Mission East has stopped dealing with this Director completely because we understand that there is a greater incentive for him to keep conditions as they are,” says Loze. “Whatever resources directed to him will simply disappear.”
But Naira Avetisyan, UNICEF’s Child Protection Officer, is quick to point out that the staff at most boarding schools and children’s homes in Armenia are genuinely concerned with the well-being of those entrusted into their care. “However,” she adds, “the importance of strengthening vulnerable families by providing them with job opportunities has to be emphasized rather than supporting the institutions.”
But, with few exceptions, conditions in Armenia’s Boarding Schools are poor, with international organizations having to operate feeding programs in some schools so that the children can at least receive their basic nutrition. The Armenian Relief Society (ARS), for example, operates three such feeding programs in Yerevan alone, but for the most part, children are undernourished.
“This can easily be observed in the faces and stature of most of these children,” says McCoy. “They are noticeably thin, have drawn faces and many are stunted in growth and small for their age. At the majority of boarding schools, the diet consists mainly of carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes and bread while few can afford to serve fruit, vegetables or meat.”
Specialized Boarding School, Kapan, Siunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that most of Armenia’s specialized boarding schools should be closed and, as the Georgian and Armenian government consider is best, with those children really deprived of parental care placed in foster or kinship care less, and those with less than severe disabilities being integrated into mainstream education as NGOs such as Bridge of Hope and World Vision are doing in the Tavoush, Shirak and Siunik regions. Attitudes also need to change.
“My daughter was born with Cerebral Palsy,” says one mother whose child has benefited from the work of the NGO. “Relatives tried to convince me that my daughter, Ashkhen, wasn’t normal and would destroy my life and that of my family. My husband abandoned me and I was left alone with my child.”
Ashkhen grew up in isolation and was deprived of the opportunity to interact with other children until she was later enrolled into a specialized boarding school that offered only a watered-down curriculum for children with learning disabilities. Separated from her mother for most of the week, Ashkhen returned home on weekends. In 1996, however, when her mother heard about the Bridge of Hope NGO, Tatevik was eager to find out more.
“When I entered the center the first thing I noticed was that there were non-disabled children there,” she says. “I never thought that disabled and non-disabled children could relate to each other.” Sixty percent of the children that attend are not disabled and of those that are, nearly half are diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a third with Down’s Syndrome.
Over the years, while still attending the specialized school, Tatevik says that Ashkhen developed quickly, becoming more communicable and confident. In 1999, at the age of 15, Bridge of Hope helped Ashkhen make the move to a regular school close to where she lives. She is now one of the most active and high-achieving children in her class and thanks to including both disabled and non-disabled children in the centers, stereotypes are being broken down.
Of course, there will be problems if alternative models of care, including community care centers, are not established first.
“There are many reasons why children with parents are deprived of parental care in Armenia,” explains Avetisyan. “First of all there is poverty, then centralization of special education within the boarding school system and finally, the absence of alternatives and community-based support services for vulnerable families at risk.”
“The majority of children in children’s homes and boarding schools are not orphans,” she continues. “They have parents and the right to live with their families.”
But, while some organizations conclude that Armenia’s Boarding Schools should be closed, such plans could create additional problems unless the root cause of the problem is addressed. UNICEF and the Armenian Ministry of the Interior estimate that there are as many as 400 children street children in Yerevan and numbers could increase if others are removed from care and effectively thrown out onto the streets.
Susanna Hayrapetyan, Social Sector Operations Offer for the World Bank’s Office in Yerevan, says that the international financial organization favors a phased approach as part of the Armenian Government’s overall Poverty Reduction Strategy. “It can’t happen overnight,” she explains. “It needs special consideration and a transition phase of at least a year and a half.”
As a result, in a wide-ranging ten-year National Program for the Protection of Children’s Rights in Armenia, the Armenian Government and NGOs working in this area propose introducing measures that will include steps taken to prevent the enrolment of children into boarding schools and the return of those already in residential institutions to their families.
“It is extremely difficult to measure the impact that removing a child from their home environment has,” says McCoy. “And, although it is too early to substantiate claims that the well-being of children placed in residential care will be affected, it may very well take an entire generation before we fully understand the social and psychological ramifications of this phenomenon.”
“However,” he concludes, “institutionalizing children only perpetuates the problem of social vulnerability in Armenia by seriously undermining the development of programs that could support the family and keep children out of institutions.”
Specialized Boarding School, Sisian, Siunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
The one exception, perhaps, would be the Specialized Boarding School for the Deaf in Nor Nork where all the children can’t hear. Moreover, the staff and parents are all very active in creating the best school for the children that they can given modest expenditure from the State Budget. Apparently, the deaf community in every country is always well organized and active, and it’s nice to see that Armenia is no exception. If any institution deserved support it’s this one.
Specialized Boarding School for the Deaf, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002
Internally Displaced Person (IDP), Berd, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2004
As Nessuna has just got back from Berd in the old Shamsadin district of what is now the Tavoush region and is planning to post something on her visit, I thought I’d post a photo from my second visit to the town in 2004. Seemingly cut off from the rest of Armenia, like other urban centers such as Chambarak in the old Krasnosyelsk district, being situated close to the border with Azerbaijan hasn’t done anyone any favors.
Cross border shelling, landmines and a general lack of investment has resulted in a huge exodus from what is considered a vitally strategic area. In an article on landmines in Armenia in 2002, I wrote more about this.
Because those displaced by cross-border skirmishes, landmines and poor socio-economic conditions have found temporary accommodation in nearby villages, the low visibility of the problem has manifested itself as a lack of attention. The Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Internally Displaced People (IDPs), Dr. Francis Deng, highlighted those concerns when he visited Armenia in May 2000.
Gagik Yeganyan, Head of the State Department for Migration and Refugees, says that for the past two years, authorities have started to take the matter seriously. “On 14 December 2000, a plan for the Post Conflict Rehabilitation of the Bordering Territories of the Republic of Armenia was approved by the Government,” he explains.
More than 23,000 houses, 78 education centers, 62 medical centers, 512km of potable and 724km of irrigation pipes, and 575km of roads were damaged by cross-border shelling and the total cost to rehabilitate the border is estimated at over $80 million. Under the Government initiative, an estimated 39,000 people will return to their homes and conditions for 28,000 who have returned already will be improved.
However, the regional authorities estimate that as much as 9,000 hectares of Tavoush is mined, fuelling concerns that the landmine problem in Armenia is greater than many realize. According to Jemma Hasratian of the Armenian National Committee of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), it is difficult to fully estimate the extent of the problem given that both regular and irregular forces were responsible for laying mines and few accurate maps exist.
“Nobody knows how many mines there are,” she says, “but we’re working with the figure of 50,000.”
However, although international organizations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and World Vision have started projects in place like Berd, the socio-economic conditions are still bleak. Siranoush, the little girl in the photograph above, perhaps represents that best. When I visited Berd for the second time, Edik Baghdasarian wrote the following about her. Really, this beautiful kid was living in squalor.
Poverty has settled in, right in the center of Berd, in the eight shacks of the settlement known as the Janjanots (fly trap), in the rooms of the ten families living in the Berd Hotel, in the eyes of beggar children and in the eyes of angelic, four-year-old Siranuysh, who never gets to eat anything but bread.
Grigor left school after the third grade. “Why did you quit school?” I ask.
“I didn’t want to go, ” he answers tersely.
“What are you doing now?” I persist.
“I work at Samvel’s shop. I unload flour and other things.”Grigor makes 500 drams (about a dollar) a day, and helps his family out. There are eight children in the family, living in a one-room shack, with no toilet, no running water. Their mother, Emma Shahnazaryan, is mentally ill. When we visit the house at nine o’clock in the morning, the children are still asleep, and the mother is baking bread in the oven. The youngest is four-year-old Siranuysh, who looks at us with her sad eyes, trying to understand why her mother woke her up.
The oldest son, Tigran, is in the Army, the rest are at home. None of the six school-age children goes to school. There are plenty of reasons - no clothes, no schoolbooks, no food, no apartment.
Back in 2002, the Armenian Government planned to rejuvinate the region along the border with Azerbaijan, but in 2004 there was very little sign of that. Last year when I visited the town again with UNICEF perhaps the road from Ijevan was in a lot better shape, but that was about all. Therefore, I’m looking forward to reading Nessuna’s impressions from her weekend trip, but also to returning to Berd again in the next month or so.
Incidently, pics from my 2004 visit are available on the Hetq Online site.
