Armenia & Artsakh

AGBU London, through the AGBU Yerevan and Stepanakert offices, finances a number of projects in Armenia and Artsakh.

In Armenia, AGBU London has since 2002 been supporting and will continue to support the Meghri kindergarten in the south of Armenia, an impoverished region bordering Iran, by providing for the daily nourishment of milk and pastries to the 300 children of the kindergarten throughout the school year. As a result of the success of this project, AGBU London has decided to extend this support to two further kindergartens in the region.

In the north of the country in Gyumri,  AGBU London is completely renovating Boarding School Number 3 for Disabled Children utilising the £3000 raised by AGBU London Youth and a further £4500 of its funds. The school was built by the Italians after the 1988 earthquake using European building materials. 140 children aged between 7 and 17 attend the school, 40 of whom are boarders.

The renovation fixes the school's pitted plasterboard walls, the peeling paint, the dirty walls and ceilings, the perishing lino flooring, the squalid and non-functional toilets and the leaking roof. The project also fixes many of the children's broken dinning tables and chairs and improves the terrible state of the school's two dormitories.

The Huys (hope) Orphanage in Gyumri is home to 70 orphaned and abandoned children between the ages of 5 and 17. In contrast to Boarding School No 3, this school is now in a relatively good condition thanks to the support and assistance of benefactors, including AGBU London.

The Lord Byron School in Gyumri, which was famously established with funds from the UK Government after the 1988 earthquake and presented as a gift from the Armenian Community of Great Britain on its openning by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher operates with funds from AGBU London. More recently, AGBU London built the school playground, now in use since the summer of 2005.

In Artsakh, AGBU London is giving hope and a future to refugee families displaced by the war and the 1988 eathquake by building the new village of Pareshen in the Hadrout region. This ambitious project is unprecedented in the chapter's history. Details of this project are available in special Pareshen Project pages on this website.

AGBU London has also for many years provided university grants and loans to students of Armenian descent studying at UK universities including many applicants from Armenia who are unable to pursue their studies at Armenian educational establishments.

Additionally, AGBU London continues to fully fund the Holy See of Etchmiadzin's placement of a student priest, nominated by His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, to study at a UK university, as part of a programme of raising the academic standards of gifted priests in the Armenian Apostolic Church. One such priest has already returned to head the Vaskenian Sevan Seminary.