Two sad stories
The once beautiful and shrubby territory called Vard-Bagh located near Akhuryan River at a 5-7 km distance from Gyumri used to be a rest zone and it turned into a settlement of shacks after the earthquake. Currently, families in extreme social conditions and homeless families with no housing compensation are living in that territory, which is cut off from the city and where there is no transportation in the winter. A large part of the Vard-Bagh territory is currently split between several wealthy people in Gyumri.
Today, Shirak Center representatives visited two families taking care of orphan children living in that territory.
Anna Simonyan, 25, and her children returned from the Russian Federation two years ago. Anna's ex-husband is currently at a prison in the Russian Federation. According to Anna, her relatives made a phony deal a couple of months ago, seized her father's home and threw her out of the house. This family is deprived of social benefits and is in hunger and poverty due to lack of official registration and no other source of income.
Even though Anna's 7-year old daughter, Laura is a happy and smart child, for some reason, she attends the night school designed for children with mental disabilities in Gyumri.
Single mother Lianna Melikyan, 33, has three children, of which the oldest is 12-year old Naira. She underwent a heart operation when she was younger and is currently in the 4th grade at the night school in Gyumri. When we visited the family, Naira said she hadn't been attending school for a week. Tigran, 9, is disabled, and the younger child, Lusine, is two years old.
This family also hasn't been receiving social benefits for a long time due to lack of official registration.
We transferred money for fuel and food that our Moscow-based compatriot had sent, as well as children's clothes and writing accessories to the socially disadvantaged mothers taking care of orphan children.
For more details about these families, watch the video prepared by Shirak Center.
