In September of 2018, we will be visiting three elementary schools with the goal of improving their overall lighting by replacing their old incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs. The improvements will benefit the classrooms, hallways, library and teacher’s lounge.

By making the lighting upgrades, electricity costs will be reduced, and it will create a well-lit environment for the students. We’ve chosen three schools, which teach grades 1 to 12 in their respective villages, they are Paravakar and Chinchin elementary schools in Tavush region and Kalavan elementary school in Gegharkunik region of Armenia.

In May of 2018 Empower Armenia visited these schools and performed a site visit. During this time Empower Armenia delivered school supplies to Paravak and Chinchin elementary schools. You can see about this project here ‘2018 School Supplies’.

For this project we will need 125 LED light bulbs and 14 light fixtures; we estimate a project budget of $835 CAD = 292,500 AMD @ ($1 CAD = 350 AMD exchange rate), which includes 35,000 AMD = $100 CAD for transportation from Yerevan, to these three villages. This project will be executed in parallel with ‘2018 Chess Supplies’, and ‘2018 Ping Pong Supplies’ projects.

POST PROJECT REMARKS:

In September of 2018, we visited the three schools (Kalavan, Chinchin and Paravakar) as planned and installed the LED light bulbs throughout the entire schools. The bulbs were assembled in Armenia, but the parts were purchased from China. We continue our policy of supporting local businesses and local products, and keep away from products made in nations that are hostile towards Armenia.

The actual project budget was a little less than what was originally estimated. The remaining funds were allocated to the Chess Supplies, to the Ping Pong Projects and two garbage bins were purchased for Chinchin elementary school.

Receipt – LED-ification

For a breakdown of actual costs please see the table below.

Notes:

1- We first visited Kalavan village in the Gegharkunik province. After completing the LED-fication of the school we sat down with the school principal and one of the teachers to discuss future projects that can be executed at their school. We stayed overnight in Kalavan village, for 10,000 per person. The fee included Dinner and breakfast.

2- During our visit in May 2018 we saw that the school didn’t have proper garbage bins, they were using two small plastic buckets to collect trash, which were overflown. We decided to purchase two garbage bins for Chinchin elementary school (one for each floor), and delivered them to the school. The bins were Made in Armenia, made from sheet metal. Please see photos for details.

For maps of Paravakar, Chinchin and Kalavan please see below.

In September of 2018, we will be visiting three elementary schools with the goal of replenishing their chess supplies. These schools already have chess equipment, such as chess sets, chess clocks and vertical magnetic chess board (which is a large hanging chess board, that the teacher uses to teach the class), but they are either short or a few sets, or some of their sets need replacing (due to their old age).

We’ve chosen three schools, which teach grades 1 to 12 in their respective villages, they are Paravakar and Chinchin elementary schools in Tavush region and Kalavan elementary school in Gegharkunik region of Armenia. In May of 2018 Empower Armenia visited these schools and performed a site visit. During this time Empower Armenia delivered school supplies to Paravak and Chinchin elementary schools. You can see about this project here ‘2018 School Supplies’.

By bringing these supplies we are enabling more children to learn and practice chess, and to think critically, and logically under pressure.

For this project, donations are being raised for 10 chess sets and 2 chess clocks; with a project budget of $270 CAD. The transportation costs for this project has been accounted for in the ‘LED-fication’ project, which will be running parallel with this project for the same elementary schools. The following project ‘2018 Ping Pong Supplies’ will also be executed at the same time, and is related to these schools.

POST PROJECT REMARKS:

In September of 2018, we visited the three schools (Kalavan, Chinchin and Paravakar) as planned and delivered the school supplies. The Chess teachers were very happy that we were able to bring them new supplies.

For maps of Paravakar, Chinchin and Kalavan please see below.

In September of 2018, we will be visiting two (2) elementary schools with the goal of bringing Ping Pong (Table Tennis) equipment for the students. In May of 2018 we visited Paravakar and Chinchin elementary schools in Tavush region and Kalavan elementary school in Gegharkunik region of Armenia. From these three schools, two required equipment for their ping pong table, Chinchin and Kalavan elementary schools.

By bringing these supplies we are enabling the children to make use of the existing ping pong table, that is rendered unusable without these equipment.

For this project, donations are being raised for 8 rackets (4 for each school) 2 table nets, and 42 ping pong balls; with a project budget of $167 CAD = 58,500 AMD @ (1 CAD = 350 AMD exchange rate). The transportation costs for this project has been accounted for in the ‘LED-fication’ project, which will be running parallel with this project for the same elementary schools. The following project ‘2018 Chess Supplies’ will also be executed at the same time, and is related to these schools.

PRE-PROJECT REMARKS:

In September of 2018, we delivered the Ping Pong supplies to Kalavan and Chinchin elementary schools in the Gegharkunik and Tavoush provinces respectively. For more details, please see project photos below.

Receipt – Ping pong balls & Net

For maps of Chinchin and Kalavan please see below.

The Hrayrk dance group was created in 2015 and is a branch of the “Karin” traditional song and dance group in Gyumri. They have 24 active members (10 boys and 14 girls), ages ranging from late teens to late 20’s. A total of 35 to 40 members however participate in dance practices three hours a day, three times a week.

The group continuously participates in local, regional, and national events. They also organize training for traditional songs and dances. During the recent years, more than 1,000 individuals have participated in the trainings. Today, the group has a strong repertoire of performances.

The core members of Hrayrk song and dance group have managed to raise funds to purchase 10 sets of traditional clothing for the men, and 1 for a female member of the group (as seen in the photos). Empower Armenia would like to help the group acquire the remaining traditional clothing for the women of the group. Each costs 35,000 AMD (roughly $100 CAD) and the group needs to purchase 13 more. Therefore, we need to raise a total of 455,000 AMD, (at exchange rate of 365 AMD = $1 CAD, at the start of this campaign) equivalent of $1,250 CAD to execute this project successfully.

Stepan Toroyan is the Art Director and Davit Haroyan, Ani Toroyan, Hasmik Toroyan are the trainers of the “Hrayrk” traditional dance and song group.

You may visit the official Facebook page of the “Hrayrk” traditional song and dance group in the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/Հրայրք-ավանդական-պարի-խումբ-1376292052410195/

This is one of our annual projects, where we deliver school supplies to underprivileged children in villages in rural areas of Armenia. These school supplies as you see in the photos will be distributed amongst 50 children in the elementary school in Paravakar Village (for location see the map below), located in the Tavoush Province of Armenia. In the future we like to expand this project, where we can reach out to thousands of children every year, and make a bigger impact in their life, we can only reach our goal with your support.

In 2016 we visited the Chinchin elementary school in the Tavoush region and donated school supplies to the children, and books to the school. The teachers did such a great job with the school supplies that we decided to go back and continue our support. They are still making use of the supplies that we donated in 2016. This year we will be revisiting them and donate additional material such as educational books (i.e. science, math, literacy (Armenian) books that are complimentary to their curriculum). We’ll also be bringing them large Maps of Armenia for their geography classroom, and some stationary products to replenish their supplies in the school (i.e. Letter Size Printing paper, Video Documentaries for the children).

Donations are scheduled to be delivered in Spring of 2018.

If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please don’t hesitate to ask, we’ll be more than happy to address them.

If you like to donate via e-mail money transfer (e-transfer) you may send your donations to info@empowerarmenia.com

If you like to donate via credit card or paypal please scroll down to see the paypal check out, or click on ‘Donate Now’ button and select ‘2018 School Supplies’ from the drop down menu.

POST PROJECT REMARKS:

This year’s school project was completed successfully. We visited Paravakar and Chinchin village elementary schools and delivered the supplies as planned. The delivery took place on Saturday, May 26, 2018. A few days before our departure from Yerevan to visit the schools, we met some amazing people who saw the work that Empower Armenia has been doing for the past few years with the support of our donors, and decided to join us. They purchased many toys for the Chinchin elementary school and chocolates for children in both elementary schools; they also joined us and came to visit the schools. We would like to thank them for their generous contribution to our project. You may see the toys alongside our school supplies in the photos.

Please continue your support to our annual school supply project, by visiting our ongoing projects

All remaining funds from this project will be used in the next year’s School Supplies project.

Notes:

1- The Story & Education books for Chinchin elementary schools were purchased from books stores in Yerevan for a total amount of 81,059 AMD = $220 CAD at an exchange rate of 367.5 AMD = $1.00 CAD.

2- Empower Armenia has purchased 5 laminated maps of Armenia (30″ x 33″), which only two were used in this year’s project. The remaining 3 will be used in future projects.

In 2015 we raised funds and we were able to directly sponsor 38 children’s visit to an optometrist and paid for their eye examination, prescription glasses and any eye medication that was required. We collaborated with OPTOMED Canada, on Alek Manukyan Street in Yerevan, Armenia. This project was carried out with the help of our Treasurer, Amalya Grigoryan. This year’s Eye Care project will be managed by our Director of Operations, Arsen Vardanyan, who oversees all of our ongoing projects in Armenia. We would like to continue to help the poor and underprivileged to be able to visit the optometrist. Generally various eye diseases or eye related illnesses that are caught and treated early can prevent the individual from having serious vision problems once the individual is older.

With the help of your generous donations we are going to sponsor another group of children to visit the optometrist in 2018.

To see our 2015 Eye Care project please click here.

POST PROJECT REMARKS:

This year World Vision and Empower Armenia worked together to successfully complete this year’s Eye Care project. Thanks to our donors we were able to raise $1,400 CAD and help 10 children. For the list of these children and the receipt please see the photo below. ‘World Vision Armenia’ was in charge of bringing the needy children to ‘OptoMed Canada’ in Yerevan to visit the optometrist. Our president was visiting Armenia at the time, and met the director of OptoMed Canada to discuss the details of the project and made the payments in person. We thank our donors for their continuous support, which made this project possible for the second year.