30 years in Armenia: for children, for change, for life

On October 4th World Vision Armenia celebrated its 30th anniversary in the National Gallery of Armenia.

World Vision was honored to host the spouse of Armenia's Prime Minister and the Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of "My Step" and "City of Smile" Foundations Anna Hakobyan, as well as the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan, Human Rights Defender/Ombudsman in Armenia Arman Tatoyan, the Director of the Office for the Mother See Chancellery Inter-Church Relations Father Paruyr Avetisyan, heads and representatives of international organizations, foreign embassies and partners.

World Vision first came to Armenia in 1988 after the devastating earthquake. World Vision first brought humanitarian aid. Later, along with humanitarian assistance, World Vision Armenia started implementing development projects.

In 2000, World Vision launched its first ‘Child Sponsorship’ programme in Gyumri marking the start of its long-term, community based development programming. Today, World Vision supports every 7th child in Armenia, and more than 650,000 children in 30 years.

‘During the past 30 years World Vision Armenia has gone through a very difficult path. Along with numerous successful outcomes and achievements, we still encounter troubling issues; many children still encounter violence, children with living parents have to stay in residential institutions. Today, World Vision Armenia not only celebrates its 30th anniversary, but we also start a new journey where we aim to solve many more issues”, - said Zhirayr Edilyan, World Vision Armenia’s Director.

Today there are 15 World Vision offices operating throughout Armenia, and through these offices, World Vision Armenia provides support to more than 110000 children.

Starting from 2001, 50,000 children attended World Vision’s summer camps. The organization established 70 Engineering labs for more than 2000 students.

“Together with World Vision we implement ‘Poverty graduation’ programme that closely works with 28 impoverished families. We plan to enlarge the number of these families reaching 40, and in the course of time, we plan to reach Artsakh. This is an inspiring project”,- said the spouse of Armenia's Prime Minister and the Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of "My Step" and "City of Smile" Foundations Anna Hakobyan in her speech.

In the past years, World Vision reunified 586 children from institutions with their families. Today the organization works with 4000 extremely poor households daily. World Vision also established 73 producers’ groups in 70 communities of Armenia.

“Being responsible for the social sector in Armenia, I am happy that I have the opportunity to make the best use of World Vision’s expertize while developing and implementing the state policies. In this process I would particularly like to focus on the inclusive approach of the organization` excluding all forms of discrimination, and not leaving out any child, be it children with disability, vulnerable children, children having different problems and of different social origins. This approach is very important, and this is the way the policy development and implementation should be done by the state”, - said the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan.