Our mission
Mission Statement: We’re an organization helping the underprivileged out of poverty by providing means for education, employment, housing, to people in Armenia.
Vision Statement: Empower Armenia, One Project at a Time.
Our goal
Our goal is to establish a transparent and efficient charitable organization, which delivers 100% of your donations to the people and communities that they are intended for. Our philosophy is to provide assistance to individuals and communities that are taking concrete action towards fighting their state of poverty.
We do not help those looking to take advantage of their state of poverty to receive and live off of charitable donations for the rest of their lives. We do not give away any financial help, (i.e. give away cash). If an individual or a community is selected by Empower Armenia to receive aid, they will benefit in terms of things that they require to take a step forward in overcoming the burdens of poverty.
We currently use 100% of your donations for conducting projects in Armenia in full transparency. We welcome all questions and comments, and we would be more than happy to address any concerns that you may have.
Our team
These wonderful people make it all possible
Araz Boghossian
Karen Papanian
Amalya Grigoryan
*Arsen Vardanyan
*Lusine Avanesyan
Sarkis Kaltakjian
*Hayk Pichikyan
*Arkadi Grigoryan
*Gedeon Simonyan
Heno Yousefi
*Rupen Janbazian
Names with an asterisk ‘*‘ mean, member permanently resides in Armenia
Who we are
Our executive team is comprised of six individuals ranging in age from their mid-20’s to mid-30’s, who have careers and professions in various fields and backgrounds. All members of the executive team are volunteers at Empower Armenia and, therefore, give their time to the organization for free. Consequently, 100% of your donations are directed towards projects that aid underprivileged individuals and communities in Armenia.
Empower Armenia is a registered charity with the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency), and provides official donation receipts for income tax purposes.
To see a complete list of our executive team and volunteers in Armenia, please click here.
How we operate
Most of our executive team is based in Canada, however our support team comprises of members from USA, UK, and Canada. Empower Armenia is also represented in Armenia via one of our executive members Arsen Vardanyan, who holds the position of Director of Operations. Arsen Vardanyan permanently resides in Armenia and he is also accompanied by three of our support team members, Hayk Pichikyan, Arkadi Grigoryan and Gedeon Simonyan. Hayk and Arkadi provide support for Arsen, by assisting him in the execution of our projects. Gedeon is in charge of our web development and administration work.
Usually one of our executive team members proposes a project based on helping individuals and/or communities in Armenia. Firstly, we examine the proposed project to see if it meets our guidelines and then discuss about the execution phase in order to determine if we can meet the requirements to complete the task successfully and efficiently. If ‘yes’, we evaluate the proposal to determine if it is beneficial for the recipients and then we commence the process by conducting interviews with potential beneficiaries . If the beneficiaries pass the interview by meeting our guidelines, we then move on to the final stage of our pre-implementation preparations, where we analyze the details of the project by looking into task feasibility, fund raising plans and project scheduling.
In addition, we create a campaign for the selected project, and advertise it through social media and our website. After raising most of the funds through donations, we put the project into motion. The remaining funds are collected throughout the implementation process, and used in completing and finalizing the anti-poverty program.
We document the whole development phase through photographs and videos, and upload them on our social media pages (Facebook, YouTube) and website.
Of course, there are a lot more details and work that go into completing charitable ventures, especially ones involving construction and renovation, so if you would like to know more, please feel free to contact us and ask any questions that you may have.