“Hello generous donors and supporters of Empower Armenia. I am Anna, a mother of beautiful twin angels. My children are two years old, my son Henry, and my daughter Nataly. Before getting married I had health issues, and I had to undergo two serious spine surgeries. After getting married, my husband and I were unable to have children. After trying for some time, we decided to see a maternity doctor. After taking ineffective medication and treatments, our doctor suggested that I undergo IVF procedure, which would increase our chance of having children. The only challenge was financing the procedure. In Armenia this is an expensive treatment, so we decided to take a bank loan. Unfortunately, the first two tries were unfruitful, however we decided to try and undergo IVF procedure for the third time, and thank God, now we are blessed with our two little angels.

Unfortunately, life presented another challenge for us. My baby boy Henry, has been diagnosed with Hydrocele, which is the swelling in the scrotum that occurs when fluid collects in the thin sheath surrounding a testicle. Henry needs surgery, thankfully such surgeries are free for children in Armenia. However, since we are going through financial hardship at this time, because of the bank repayments of the IVF procedure loans. For this reason, we are unable to pay for the medication and the care that follows the surgery. We have decided to approach ‘Empower Armenia’ for support and any help that they can provide.

Thank you,

Anna.”

As per Anna’s request, we are keeping all personal information and photos of the family offline. Only donors will be able to speak with Anna if they wish so. We are very dedicated to keep all of our project as transparent as possible.

The following are the cost breakdowns, which we are fundraising for. Exchange rate was calculated at $1 CAD = 355 AMD.

This is the second round of dental hygiene project that has been made possible by a generous donor named Maro, who likes to remain anonymous. Empower Armenia thanks Maro, who donated over 240 toothbrushes and 48 toothpastes in 2019 alone; which will be distributed to children well into the next year. The remaining toothpastes will either be purchased by Empower Armenia or will be donated by Maro in the future.

In September of 2019, with the help of Ani Mkrtchyan, a dentist from Yerevan, we are going to visit the elementary school in the village of Noramarg, and give away toothbrushes and toothpaste to 65 children. The dentist will teach the children the correct way to brush their teeth and the benefits that come with dental hygiene. We will also discuss the dangers of smoking and the damage that it causes to our oral health and other vital organs in the body. Empower Armenia will use part of the left over funds from 2019 School Supplies project to pay for additional toothpaste to cover the 65 children.

Together we can Empower Armenia, One Project at a Time.

Post Project Remarks:

This project was completed successfully on 2^nd of September, 2019. Empower Armenia with the leadership of our project manager Lusine Avanesyan, was able to deliver toothbrushes and toothpastes to 65 children in the village of Noramarg, in the Ararat Province of Armenia.

Our volunteer dentist, Ani Mkrtchyan from Yerevan volunteered with us for the second time this year, and taught the children the proper way to brush their teeth. Dr. Ani also spoke to the children about the dangers of smoking and the damage that it causes to vital organs. We will continue this project in 2020. We thank all of our volunteers who made this project possible.

This project did not require additional financial donations, since all the toothbrushes and toothpastes were donated, and deficiencies were covered from surplus from previous projects mentioned above. The transportation costs were paid for by donations leftover from the transportation portion of our 2019 School Supplies project.

Project spending breakdown:

Since our first project in 2014, one of our main goals has been to enable individuals from underprivileged families to receive a higher education at their desired university or college. Building hospitals and schools are great; however, they require professionals to operate, and together we can help young professionals in Armenia to accomplish their dreams. After five years of conducting charitable work in Armenia, we like to announce our very first university fund project.

This fundraising is being conducted for Mariam Khachaturyan of Mush village, located in the Qashatagh region of Armenia. Mariam’s family is in a difficult financial situation due to her mother’s illness. Her mother is diagnosed with 2^nd stage ovarian cancer. Mariam graduated high school this year, and is working at their family farm with her father and siblings to make ends meet. She had no hopes of entering university, but she was dreaming in becoming a teacher.

We met Mariam in June 2019; when we were delivering school supplies to the younger children at her school, part of our 2019 School Supplies Project. She was part of the school choir who welcomed us by singing a few songs. By promising Mariam that we would provide financial support, she applied to Artsakh State University, and successfully passed the entrance exams. Since the round trip to the university from Mush village is about 300km, Mariam would have to move to Stepanakert. Because of her mother’s condition, Mariam decided that she would attend the first year of university online (long distance learning), so she could be at home with her mother, and support her while studding.

The breakdown of the costs are as follow:

Notes:

1. It costs 250,000 dram ($704 CAD) per year to attend university. The reason for the tuition fee being lower than usual is because Mariam will be studying through “Long Distance Learning”, which means Mariam will be attending university online from her village, rather than relocate to Stepanakert. If Mariam desires, next year she will have the option of relocating to Stepanakert to continue her remaining of studies at the university.
2. Empower Armenia purchased a laptop for Mariam from Canada. Currently, she doesn’t have any computer at home (desktop or laptop). Since she will be studying through Long Distance Learning at least the first year of her studies, we decided to purchase a laptop for her, so she can have it with her during exam periods in Stepanakert as well.
3. We had initially for seen 250,000 AMD = $704 CAD for her laptop since the laptop purchased was cheaper, the difference will be going towards paying a portion of Mariam’s textbooks.
4. Mariam will have to travel to the university in Stepanakert during exam season twice a year, for at least two weeks to write her exams. During this time, she will be staying in Stepanakert, and there are expenses associated with this, which Empower Armenia will be covering for.

Post-project remarks

As you may know, Mariam’s mother was ill with ovarian cancer. Unfortunately her mother passed away after a long a difficult battle with her illness. Mariam fought through this difficult time, and completed her first year of studies.  Her dream of becoming a teacher is one step closer because of your support. To see the details on the fundraising for her second year of studies please click here.

Since our first project in 2014, one of our main goal has been to enable individuals from underprivileged families to receive a higher education at their desired university or college. Building hospitals and schools are great; however, they require professionals to operate, and together we can help young professionals in Armenia to accomplish their dreams.  Thanks to our donors’ continuous support, we were able to successfully sponsor Mariam attend her first year of studies at Artsakh University.

Laptop-Receipt.pdf

Qashatagh Museum is located in the city of Berdzor. Berdzor is located in South East part of Armenia, near the Syunik province. Berdzor is a province capital, and its museum holds beautiful ancient artifacts, ranging from large to small clay pots for wine making or wheat storage. Various ceremonial artifacts, metal works, rugs and more, which some date back to the first millennium B.C.; You may visit their facebook page here.

While we were visiting Qashatagh to deliver school supplies to the children in the surrounding villages (see our 2019 School Projects for more details) we noticed the room mentioned above doesn’t have any electrical power. After a quick investigation and a discussion with the director of the museum Lilith Qocharyan, we realized that the problem can be fixed with a small contribution, which their budget didn’t allow. So we decided to take action and provide some support to this dedicated director and her awesome team. We pre-funded the project on the spot and the lights were back on in the room a few days later. You may see the great results in the photos below.

We are looking to raise 46,590 AMD, which is equal to $133 CAD. For project cost break down, please see the table below. The amounts were calculated at $1 CAD at 350 AMD exchange rate. Photos of the available receipts are also shown below.

Empower Armenia would like to take this opportunity to thank the amazing people who made this project possible, Lilith Qocharyan, the museum director, and Nelli Martirosyan for introducing us to this mesmerizing region of Armenia, and its great people. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at info@EmpowerArmenia.com or message us on our facebook page: Empower Armenia.

The museum needs a projector, to enable the museum to show educational videos to school children, the general public and the tourists. The museum will be able to show videos of their previous excavations and findings. They will be able to raise awareness in the local population regarding ancient artifacts in the region.

We have purchased a BenQ Data Projector model (MS535A) on sale, for $395 CAD (including 13% HST). Please see the photos for the purchase receipt and more details.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at info@EmpowerArmenia.com or message us on our facebook page: Empower Armenia.

In June 2019, we visited seven elementary schools, a kindergarten, a museum and a library South of Armenia, near the Syunik province, and upgraded their lighting from incandescent light bulbs to LED bulbs where they were needed. Not all elementary schools required lighting upgrades, since some had been recently renovated and were already equipment with LED lighting.

PRE-PROJECT REMARKS:

In June of 2019, Empower Armenia will be visiting five 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.

This year’s school supplies project was completed, we were able to successfully bring school supplies to just over 200 children in the rural areas of Armenia. We delivered school supplies, and soccer balls to the orphanage ‘Our Lady of Armenia’ – ‘Tiramayr Hayastan’ in Gyumri. This took place on Thursday, June 6, 2019. A week later we visited the Southern provinces of Armenia, where we donated school supplies to the children, soccer balls, tournament chess sets, black board chalk erasers, and a map to each school. Originally 150 school supplies were to be donated to five schools in the South, near the province of Syunik, but we decided to extend the program to two additional schools. We donated 185 school supplies to seven schools in two days on Saturday and Sunday, June 15^th and 16^th of 2019. A total of 200 school supplies, 30 soccer balls, 24 chess sets, 72 chalk board erasers and 5 Maps were given away between seven school and an orphanage in 2019.

If you were wondering why we haven’t mentioned the names and locations of the schools that we visited in the South regions of Armenia on our website as per our policy of transparency with our donors and everyone else; we were ask not to by the local administration for national security reasons. If anyone of our donors would like to know the names and the location of the schools, we are able to provide that to you upon your request; but unfortunately, we were asked to omit this information from our website and facebook page for national security reasons. I hope this does not cause any inconvenience to you in anyway. Thank you.

Please continue your support to our annual school supplies project, by visiting out ongoing projects.

We’ve chosen five schools in the Qashatagh province in the Artsakh region of Armenia, which teach grades 1 to 12 in their respective villages. In June of 2019 Empower Armenia will visit these schools, and performed a site visit of the schools for potential future projects to be conducted there. For last year’s chess supplies project please visit the following link ‘2018 Chess Supplies’.

By bringing these supplies we are enabling more children to learn and practice chess and to think critically, and logically under pressure. Chess is a part of Armenia’s school curriculum; Armenia is the only country in the world at the moment to have chess implemented in its school system.

For this project, donations are being raised for 24 chess sets; with a project budget of $420 CAD = 152,000 AMD @ (1 CAD = 362 AMD exchange rate). The transportation costs for this project has been accounted for in the ‘2019 School Supplies’ project, which will be running parallel with this project for the same elementary schools.

This project will be implemented in June of 2019.

We always posts maps of where our project is going to be taking place, but for this project, since it will be taking place in the sensitive region of Artsakh, we will be refraining from naming the schools, nor their exact location, at this time we can only say that they are in the Qashatagh province in the Artsakh region. For more information or if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ‘contact us’.

This is one of our annual projects, where we deliver school supplies to 50 underprivileged children in villages in rural areas of Armenia. This year, we are going to deliver 200 school supplies to children around Armenia. One of the schools that will receive supplies will be the orphanage ‘Our Lady of Armenia’ ran by Catholic Nuns, in Gyumri, Shirak Province of Armenia. In the photos below you can some of the supplies that will be donated. Just over 153 units are shown in the photos below. The remaining supplies had been transported to Armenia, and were not present at the time that the photos were taken. The remaining supplies will be shown in the next set of photographs in 2019. As per our procedure, a detailed list consisting name and location of each school, along with quantities of supplies that will be donated to each school will be presented in the next few months on our website.

More details on which villages will be visited in 2019 will be provided in the following months. For details on our previous school projects please visit the link here

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.

The donations are scheduled to be delivered in Spring of 2019.

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 credit card or paypal please scroll down to see the paypal check out, or click on ‘Donate Now’ button and select ‘2019 School Supplies’ from the drop down menu.

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

POST-PROJECT REMARKS:

This year’s project was completed successfully. We visited all 5 schools, plus one kindergarten and an elementary school. The delivery took place on Saturday and Sunday, June 15 and 16, 2019.

Since the schools we visited were close to the boarder, we were asked not to publish any details of these schools online. However we will share information with any of the individuals who have donated to this project at their request.

Please continue your support of our annual school supplies project, by visiting our ongoing projects tab. Since 2019, we have expanded to other educational projects, by supporting young Armenian high school graduates, who due to financial issues are unable to pursue a higher education, attend university. Please visit our ongoing projects for more details.

School Supplies Receipts (Staples) – 2019

This is a pilot project that has been made possible by a generous donor named Maro. Empower Armenia thanks Maro, who donated 70 tooth brushes. Also, we would like to thank another generous donor, who donated 70 mini tooth pastes, which will go hand in hand with the tooth brush. With the help of a local dentist in Armenia, we are going to be visiting elementary schools in Armenia and show the children the correct way to brush their teeth and the benefits that come with dental hygiene. We will also discuss the dangers of smoking and the damage that it causes to our oral health and other vital organs in the body.

This project did not require any financial donations, since all the tooth brushes and tooth paste were donated. There are also no transportation costs to be covered by Empower Armenia. We would like to thank Maro, for initiating this project and Sarah for providing us with the tooth paste.

Together we can Empower Armenia, One Project at a Time.

POST PROJECT REMARKS:

On 14th of April, 2019, Empower Armenia with the leadership of our project manager Lusine Avanesyan was able to deliver tooth brushes and toothpaste to 50 children in the village of Kaqavadzor. A dentist from Yerevan, Ani Mkrtchyan, volunteered with us and showed the children the proper way to brush their teeth. The dentist also spoke to the children about the dangers of smoking and the damage that it causes to vital organs. We will continue this project either later in 2019, or early 2020. We like to thank all our volunteers who made this project possible.

In total we spent $34.00 CAD (12,000 AMD) to pay for the transportation cost from Yerevan, to the village of Kaqavadzor and back. The $34.00 CAD was used from the $93.00 CAD (33,000 AMD) that was remaining from our 2017 Gohar’s art studio renovation project. There is $59.00 CAD (21,000 AMD) left, which will be used to pay for future transportation costs.