Armenia, Middle East

ARM01 - Vanadzor Poverty Intervention: Partnership Reports



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Report Date: April 4, 2015

Report from BHW Field Director

 

Recent Events

Activities

Every month Martun travels from Yerevan to Vanadzor to visit the families that are being supported. It’s about a 2½ hour drive, very treacherous in winter with a lot of snow on the ground.  

I visited Armenia in March 2015 and went to Vanadzor and met with all the families being supported there. It is a sad place, depressing. Also there was a picnic in Yerevan and most of those from Vanadzor came in a bus.  

New Profiles

great coupleMartun and Angela Harutyunyan (and their daughters Marie and Victoria) are the local coordinators for ACM. He writes, “we are grateful to the Lord for choosing us to work in His field. The longer we work with our poor needy families, the more we understand them and feel their concerns and worries and we make them our own. My wife and I are very happy and thankful that we have been serving the Lord through ACM for the last 5 years. 

Our duties vary. I visit poor families throughout Armenia and we have many guests come to visit us. We also visit churches and provide counselling for needy families. Our families are always happy to know there are people from other countries who care for them. 

We also distribute a small magazine to churches, Trumpet Sound. I prepare sponsorship portfolios and help run Bible studies for the youth. Angela is involved in children’s ministry through Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF).

ACM is very vital for Armenia; there are many hungry people in need of daily bread. Many survive because of the monthly support they receive. At the end of each month they look out for the packages to come and they are received with great joy. Many are in tears as the support arrives, they are so thankful to the Lord for you. 

good recordsSome of the families have some land and small barns but no finances to use them. Small loans have been helpful to some of them who have done well. It is also important to be able to share the Good News with these people. They need to have an awareness that God is in control and he will care for them. Thanks so much for your support and love for us and these people.”

Martun is an enthusiastic man with a real passion for the poor. I really love the way he interacts with love, mercy and compassion. He is loved by those he works with, you can just see it in their body language. He is meticulous at keeping the records of the deliveries and gets all the signatures.  

Programmes

food for a monthThere are three major programs to deliver care to eight families:
1) Regular financial support for two families at around US$70/month.
2) Food supplements for a number of families where there is no income or income earner. The picture shows the contents of a food packet. It is enough to last for a month for a family and costs about US$35.
3) Funds to families throughout the winter for heating, mainly firewood. 

There is monthly visitation of all the families. 

I have to say that I was not entirely sure of the benefits of this sort of programme. In a sense it’s just keeping them alive. But I have been surprised by the impact of this program. The families are much better off than they seemed to be at the time of my last visit. The children seem happier and their clothing is better. The women are happy with the support they get and the food is adequate. 

 

Personal Stories

While visiting in Vanadzor I was able to visit the eight main families that are supported. Here is a short bio of each family:

very difficult situation1) Marine Dielanyan lives in a shack that is infested with rats. The place leaks badly in the snow and rain and when I visited the carpets were damp and the walls were wet in some places. There was mould on the walls and it seemed like a very dangerous place in which to live. She has three children and her mother lives with her too. She has some nice things that belong to her mother.

This place needs a new roof before next winter. Sometimes Marine does washing for other people but she has not worked for quite a while. She used to get some assistance from the government but that has stopped. She gets a small amount of money each month to help with household necessities. 

Despite the difficulties of her living circumstances, she was very happy and thankful. She came with the children to the picnic and they all loved it. The kids were running around and loved the games and the food. 

There is a short writeup about her in the Partnership web write up. 

 

sad situation2) Armenuhie Hovahanniesyan has four young children. Her situation is not great. Her husband was away in Russia for a period of time but has come back to the area. 

He was affected by a fall from a window that damaged his head. His depression has caused him to be violent and he is not allowed to be at home as he is a danger to the children. He is on medication but it doesn’t seem to help much, he lives with his mother. 

needs surgeryArmenuhie is not able to work as she has the four little children to care for, the eldest is about 8 years old, two boys and two little girls. She receives a monthly amount of money to help her with family expenses. 

They all came to the picnic and loved their time, though it was hard on her to be looking after the four children. She is underweight and looks very weary. 

The little one with cancer is a happy little thing. The lump on her nose has not become any worse but it is important that she is able to see a specialist before much longer. See the black shadow and lump on the right side of her nose. 

There is a brief write up about Armenuhie on the Partnership web write up.

 

unable to work3) Karine Qocharyan receives monthly food supplements from ACM. She has two children and no other family members in the area or support. Her husband left her with the two children and went to Russia to find work. He never came back and then had another family up there. She doesn’t think she will ever see him again.  

Because of the age of the children she cannot work and until the ACM support came she could not send the children to school. She is a nice young woman and it is very dangerous for her living in this place. 

All the people in this community look out for each other. Her house is attached to that of Marine (1) and they are very good friends. Her youngest child, a son, was very shy when we visited them in their home, he didn’t want to have his picture taken and made a fuss about it. But they all came to the picnic and he brought his plastic revolver and shot me many times throughout the day!!! Her daughter is a lovely, chubby faced little girl who smiles easily.

Karine is shy as well, but very grateful for the food we took with us. She doesn’t know how she would live without it. 

 

hard life4) Aida Hovhannisyan lives in one of the shacks with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and three little grandchildren. I imagine she is in her 40's, but she looks 60. Life has obviously been hard for her and her family.  

None of the family has permanent work, they scrounge and scavenge what they can. The son-in-law does get some daily work but there is no guarantee of work from day to day. When he is not working he goes out into the forest with his father-in-law. They cut trees and look for wild strawberries, mushrooms and raspberries to sell to generate a little income. 

The day I visited the men were out and the women were there with the children. They welcomed their monthly food supplement that we delivered but you could see in their eyes that life was desperately hard. There were few smiles and the children did not look healthy at all. They were small children, they looked undernourished. The youngest, just a few months old, was asleep in a cot beside the firebox. I cannot imagine what it would be like in this home in the middle of winter. 

Aida is the older one on the left of the picture and there is a little write up about her on the front page of this partnership on the BHW website. 

 

tough life5) Darinka Mkrtchyan is in her early 20's and has five children. She lives with her mother who looks after the kids and she goes out to find work. She has just found some regular, low paying work in a bakery which is a great help. They get a food supplement every month which is a wonderful help. She was working the day we were there so I didn’t get to meet her.  Her mum was there with the five kids and her daughter-in-law who was pregnant as well. 

hard place to liveHer husband went to Russia to find work and didn’t come home, he has another family up there now. Her children go to school irregularly, when she has some money to send them.  

The mother was obviously a stylish woman when she was younger (my guess is she is in her late 40's now) and still dresses smartly. She has a lot of pride in her appearance and her house and I wonder how she must feel to be living like this. She brought her grandchildren, all five of them to the picnic and had a lot of fun. 

 

very hard life6) Ruzanna Karapetyan has had a lot of grief in her life. Her husband has spina bifida and cannot work. She has breast cancer and both of them require an operation. Just before we arrived she had burned her leg badly. She spilt petrol on it and it caught fire. So that needed treatment. 

Her eldest son committed suicide 13 years ago when he was just 12 years old. Her next son was in the army. When he left he got a good job and bought a taxi. He was doing well and the family benefitted from his income. About a year ago he had an accident in the taxi and was killed. That has deeply affected them. 

tough place to liveThe third son is healthy although a surly man with some sort of attitude and the fourth son is quite seriously disturbed. He was born with psychotic problems and needs constant medication and supervision.  

All-in-all this was a pitiful situation. They had some stuff from the son, stereo, plates, furniture etc. but there is no income and few prospects. Ruzanna and her youngest son came to the picnic and enjoyed it. The doctor on the team (from Australia) was able to treat her wound and give her medication for a month.  

This family gets food supplements monthly and it is a great help to them. 

 

troubled kids7) Susanna Sarabegian has three children living at home. All of them are affected in varying degrees with psychological problems. Her eldest daughter is the one most seriously affected.  

She wasn’t around the day we visited but her husband was with two of the girls. They came to the picnic as well. Her husband tries to get daily work but he is not very strong and it is hard to make ends meet. The food supplements are a really important part of this family staying together. 

 

grateful for food supplements8) Meline Simonian also gets food supplements. She lives here with her husband and two children. Her husband has epilepsy and tries to find daily work. This is difficult as he is sometimes not able to work and he sometimes injures himself. 

Despite the difficult life they have, they are very happy and thankful for the assistance. Her son is 6 years old and her daughter is 2½. She came with her son to the picnic and had a lovely time.

 

 

Partnership's Influence within the Community

This is hard to gauge at the moment as the programme has been going for less than a year. The people being supported are very happy. The community leaders are happy but they do nothing. Other people in the communities become jealous. While visiting in Vanadzor, one man became very agitated that he was not being helped. He stirred up a group and a shouting match ensued. These people are desperate. The program is known about and there are many more who need assistance. 

There is a Baptist church nearby who are starting to get the idea that they could help these people spiritually. The ACM people are working with them to convince them to reach out to the people. But it’s not an easy task. They have been building a new building and they cannot see much more than finishing that. This is a source of frustration to the ACM guys as there was an understanding from the beginning that they would get involved. 

 

Ideas for the Future

These families are suffering from intergenerational poverty. This has resulted in many serious health issues for many of those being supported through ACM. There is a huge amount of mental illness. It is not unusual to find a family with four or five children and every one of them is affected in some way. 

Because of the poverty many minor problems are left untreated and they develop into serious issues. On a one day visit we saw burns untreated, most of the kids with running noses and coughs (it was the end of winter), a blind boy with infected eyeballs that need to be taken out and false eyes inserted, a number of cases of cancer untreated and one little girl with a suspicious looking growth on her nose. And then there is the teeth! It’s not uncommon to find people in their 30's with no teeth left and many people with only one or two teeth. 

In the past ACM have had some funds for medical interventions, but it’s not regular. They would love to be able to assist. This could happen at two levels depending on the amount of money available. Level one would be the families currently supported by BHW. The second level would be a general fund for those supported by ACM across the country including Syrian refugees and other local poor people.

opportunities hereThere is room here for Foundations for Farming but it is going to take some thinking through and a key local person on the ground. They have a short spring and autumn and a long winter and summer (dry) but many of the families have little bits of land they could use.

They constantly have their eyes out for key people to whom they can give loans, especially in farming. Some recently have proved to be very successful but it won’t work with most of those they support. The best hope for these people is to get employment. There is some development going on in Yerevan, but none at all in Vanadzor so it’s unlikely that many of them will get good jobs. 

 

Current Issues and Challenges

1) The huge needs in these communities. Every family in the Vanadzor community is very needy. They live in appalling little tin caravans. They are extremely hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. 

2) The sickness amongst those in the program. There are many needs amongst them both minor and serious. 

One teenage boy in a supported family is blind. He gets constant infections in his eyes, they were dripping with pus the day we were there. He has pain in his eyeball and they are grossly swollen and bright white. He needs to have the eyeballs removed and replaced with false ones. This is quite urgent. 

 

 

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Many families are feeling cared for and supported. They all expressed their appreciation for the support from ACM. 
2) That the kids being helped will be able to do well at school and get out of the intergenerational poverty traps. 
3) That many of the people being assisted will become followers of Jesus as they are exposed to the Good News. 
4) To find another key person to assist Martun as the work grows. 

 

Comments

I was pleasantly surprised by the things I saw. The people live in appalling circumstances. They have little going for them, but they have pride and dignity. They love the ACM people, Martun is a great guy. 

I do not like handouts but I think as long as there is an awareness that development is part of the long term deal then it is OK. That understanding is here, but there is not a lot of resource available to implement, like loans, training etc. However, I think this is a good start.