Shant Demirjian is a Syrian-Armenian volunteer at “Armenian Caritas” Yerevan office and he is involved in the migration and trafficking related projects. Shant talks on the initiation and importance of volunteering in humanitarian sphere.
Shant left Kessab for Armenia, because of the civil war. The Armenian populated town of Kessab is situated in the North –Western part of Syria, in the Aleppo Region. Besides Kessab, 9 villages out of 13 were Armenian populated too. 8 Armenian churches with the affiliated schools were operating in Kessab Region. Shant’s life was full of Armenian spirit in Kessab. He attended Armenian school,
Child Safeguarding Policy
Project duration: 01.06.2016 – 28.02.2017
Beneficiaries: “Armenian Caritas” beneficiaries (children, young people and their families), staff and volunteers.
Location: “Armenian Caritas” Child Care Centers.
Goal: To ensure the safety of children within all child-oriented projects through elaboration and application of the Armenian Caritas Child Safeguarding Policy.
Activities: “Armenian Caritas”
Horomsima Davtyan was born in 1929 in a family of a musician. She has born and raised in Ghukasyan village, attending the local school. Her father Stepan Davtyan was a musician and her mother was a housekeeper.
In 1944 after many years of living in the village, the family decided to move to Gyumri. Mrs. Horomsima began to work at Gyumri’s Textile factory. For about 5 months she was a trainee and then up to 1951 she worked there as a weaver.
“Healthy mentality-healthy family”
Location: Shirak region, Gyumri
Project Duration: since 2010 – 01.09.2012
Description:
The project “Healthy mentality-healthy family” is very unique in its type, emphasizing the importance of the formation of healthy families and raising of healthy generation, the value of the family and creation of the “third one” with the unity of “two”.
The ultimate goal is to emphasize the importance of the Holy Matrimony, the daily “work” to be done by the couples to maintain their families,
Disaster Preparedness as a First Step to Sustainable Development
(joint project in Armenia and Georgia by Caritas Romania)
Project Duration: 01.10.2016 – 30.09.2017
Location: Arapi, Voskehask, Jajur (Shirak province)
Background: Armenia and Georgia are both prone to different types of natural disasters, the most important amongst them floods, earthquakes and landslides. Maybe the best known example of disasters in the province is the Spitak earthquake from 1988, which killed about 25.000 persons. Disasters happen frequently affecting large groups of the population and causing important damages in infrastructure (transportation infrastructure,
Lena Habetnagyan was born in a family of workers, in Leninakan on April 15, 1930.
She has lost her parents in an early age. Being the eldest, Lena had two sisters and three brothers. Upon their parents’ death, Lena began to take care of her brothers and sisters. It was very difficult for Lena to attend school and take care for brothers and sisters at the same time. So the fourth grade was the last one for Lena.
In Harutyunyan’s large family from Karnut village a daughter Sofik Harutyunyan was born on August 31 of 1948: in the severe post-war years of Stalinism, in the same year when a well-known English novelist and journalist George Orwell wrote his “1984” novel where he mocks Stalinism and presents the process of oppression of an individual under totalitarism. Who could have thought that 1988, so close to 1984 would change Sofik’s life so drastically.
Sofik had two sisters and one brother.
HIV/AIDS Prevention and Support in the Post-Soviet Countries
(Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia)
Project Duration: 01. 07.2016 – 30. 06.2019
Beneficiaries: about 3,670 community members
Project Location: Shirak Province
The economic and social background of people living in villages, high level of unemployment, increased migration to the countries with high indicators of HIV as well as insufficient awareness level of transmission and prevention of the infection make the spreading of HIV in the region easier. The estimation of HIV registered cases of the RA is the highest in Shirak Province,
“Emili Aregak” Must be in my Life
Every time I find it hard to remember and tell funny stories about my 4 years of volunteering: they are too many. My every single day in ”Emili Aregak” 
is an interesting and complete story, full of funny stories and life lessons.
It will be easier for me to answer the question of what volunteering has given me. Therefore, I would like to tell you a few words on how I was prior to my becoming a volunteer:
A lot of people lost their houses, the others lost their relatives and there are some who survived and keep struggling with the earthquake of 1988. A woman who was affected by the earthquake too is 66 years old Katya Pijoyan from Gyumri. She attended Gyumri school # 9 up to the VIII grade. Then she worked at Gyumri’s Stock factory for two years as a trainee, and only in 1970 she became a worker. During her employment years she got married and had 3 children.
Seda Arshakuni was born in Gyumri on January 24, 1927. Her father, craftsman, was from Kars and her mother, housewife, from Gyumri. In 1918 with his entire family Seda’s father fled to Armenia, came to Gyumri, so much resembling Gyumri, and had met her future wife, Seda’s mother.
“It was very painful for my father to leave his native home Kars, his only dream was to return and leave there. He even told me that after his death I take ground from his grave and take it to Kars,” told Seda.
