MISSION ARMENIA PRESENTS: SOCIAL HOUSE FOR ELDERLY TO BE OPENED IN YEREVAN
- Amid hundreds of the new residential buildings in the city under construction, a three-floored building on 88 Sevak Street is not remarkable. Still it is probably the only current construction in the city which does not raise the discontent of the residents who are tired from dust and uproar of construction. Instead the construction is heartily welcomed by residents who are looking forward to the day when it will be finished, because many of Yerevan residents think a day may come when they will need that building.By the end of the year the first Armenian social and healthcare center complex will be completed and inaugurated in the Kanaker Zeytun community. The center will provide a wide range of services to the most vulnerable group of population, such as the refugees and elderly, who because of insolvency have no access to even very basic services. The center will comprise a canteen, bathhouse, laundry, hairdresser’s parlor, dentist office, social consulting compartment, conference hall and gym.
Besides the services to refugees and pensioners, the 28 apartments of the center will accommodate 34 single elderly above 60 years old in light and comfortable premises. The residents will have access to all services for free offered by the center, while each two apartments will share one kitchen and one bathroom. The residents of the social house will pay a fee for the communal expenses of their apartments, such as water, electricity and heat.
The idea to create a social house in Armenia was proposed and is being realized by the Mission Armenia charitable organization, one of the most active non governmental organizations in Armenia dealing with vulnerable layers of population.
“I believe this house will serve a model of providing dignified living conditions to our elderly,” says Hripsime Kirakosyan, chairwoman of the organization. “The social houses exist in all civilized countries and our organization will mobilize all its resources to create more such houses in Armenia and especially to involve the governmental structures in realization of such projects.”
Kirakosyan says it took the organization three years to raise funds for construction. The 1,300 square meter area for construction was donated by the Kanaker-Zeytun municipality to Misssion Armenia in 2005. By now there has been invested over $1 million into realization of the Social House project with 70 percent of the amount allocated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Mission Armenia is seeking more financing from donor organizations to complete the interior of the building and to furnish it.
Kirakosyan says now the organization is checking the lists of vulnerable people to choose the first 34 occupants. She says a special commission will be established to make the selection.
“Of course it will be very hard to make such a choice, but we have to start in order to go ahead. I can only say that the preferences will be given to the residents of the Kanaker-Zeytun community.”
The Kanaker-Zeytun community has some 102,000 residents, of which about 63,000 are officially considered as socially insecure.
Despite the economic growth in the country and the reforms in the social sphere, the issue of elderly has been slowly improving in the country with 29 percent of that population living below the poverty level.
Mission Armenia was founded in 1988 with the aim of providing social and health care to the most disadvantaged group of population, such as single old, disabled, refuges, vulnerable households. The organization deals with 15,000 people, 8 000 of which are elderly and disabled and the rest are refugees who live in temporary houses or hotels. During the years of its activity Mission Armenia has set up 32 “soup kitchens”, 40 health posts, two temporary recovery centers and various community centers and rooms. Mission Armenia has been sponsored by the donor organization such as UNHCR, USAID, CARITAS, OXFAM and few others.
Last year Mission Armenia became the only non governmental organization that got financing from the state budget. Next year the Armenian government will allocate 108 million dram ($300,000) to Mission Armenia for the realization of its charitable programs.
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- 1870 Birth of Atabek Khnkoyan (children's writer). He died in 1935.
- 1960 Death of writer Teegran Dzeetoonee.
- 1974 Creation of the Union Institute of Clinical and Experimental Surgery (USSR Ministry of Public Health) in Yerevan.
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