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.

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.

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.

For our next project, we are raising funds to renovate an art studio of an artist named Gohar who lives in the village of Hatsik just outside of Gyumri, in the Shirak province of Armenia.

Gohar is 28 years old and from the time she was a child, she had difficulty speaking. As a child she started drawing objects to communicate with her family. Over time she became a great painter and years ago she started taking an interest in sculpting and now she is a great sculptor as well. You can see some of her work in the video and the photos in the description.
Some of the photos show the current conditions in which her art studio is in. In the winter months it is so cold that she is not able to work in her studio at all. So, we’ve decided to renovate her art studio, insulate it, add proper lighting, heating and cooling for the winter and the hot summer months.

I, myself (the president of this charitable group) am an electrical engineer, and with the help of volunteer engineers in Armenia we are working on the design of this renovation project. We are all working as volunteers, and 100% of the donations will be going to the purchase of materials, and to pay for local tradesmen that will be performing the renovation work on this project. We will also have local volunteers helping us with the renovation process to keep the costs as low as possible. We have found a sponsor in Armenia, who will donate some of the building material. Additional funding is required since this one sponsor will not be able to provide us with all the material and cover all of the costs.

We are scheduled to start the renovations at the beginning of May, 2017. I personally will be visiting the art studio in the beginning of June for a few weeks to check up on the progress of the project.

If you like to donate via e-mail money transfer (e-transfer) you may send your donation to info@empowerarmenia.com. If you like to donate via credit card or paypal please see below.

Post Project Remarks:

In 2017 Empower Armenia renovated an art studio of an artist named Gohar who lives in the village of Hatsik just outside of Gyumri, in the Shirak province of Armenia.
From the time Gohar was a child, she had difficulty speaking. As a child she started drawing objects to communicate with her family. Over time she became a great painter and years ago she started taking an interest in sculpting and now she is a great sculptor as well.
We decided to empower her by renovating her art studio.
In January of 2017, Empower Armenia began the assessment of Gohar’s art studio. The project commenced at the end of April of 2017 and was successfully completed in September of 2017.
We would like to thank all of our staff and volunteers, in Armenia, Canada, and the United States for making this project a reality.
All of the material used in this renovation project are either made in Armenia, or made in countries that are friendly to the nation of Armenia.
Together we can Empower Armenia, one project at a time.