Continuing work with children with a disability after the end of the project

For more than five years, Mission East has worked in Armenia on a groundbreaking project entitled ‘A Healthy Start’. The aim of the project is nothing less than life-changing, sometimes life-saving, for the more than 8,000 children in Armenia estimated to have a disability. While the Soviet legacy was one of viewing children with a disability just as children with a disease, the result of this view was that children with a disability were often given up on and left outside of the system, unable to get both the medical, educational and social attention they needed. As a result, many parents hid their children in their own homes, afraid not only of the stigmatization the child would inevitably meet, but also the consequences for the siblings of the child, who often could not marry and get their own family.
The ‘Healthy Start’ project has worked for more than five years to break this stigma, offering Armenian children with a disability the option of getting an early diagnosis by a team of specialist paediatricians, and then follow-up treatment, either an operation or other urgent help if such was needed, or more likely long term follow up in one of the Child Development and Rehabilitation Centres established in seven of the country’s 11 provinces.
The project started in the province of Armavir west of the capital of Yerevan, where a centre has been operating since 2007. Then, the second phase of the project moved to the border provinces of Tavush and Gegharkunik, and beginning this year, the third phase aims to solidify the project in Tavush, ensuring a model is established that will lead to the establishing of more centres in the rest of the country.
With the second phase ending in the remote province of Gegharkunik this year in May, I was interested to see how our local partners there, Bari Huys (Good Hope) and Arevshat (A Lot of Sunshine) were coping with the challenges of finding more of the ‘forgotten’ children, and how work was continuing at the local Child Development and Rehabilitation Centre in the town of Gavar after the end of the project.
I was very pleased to see that – despite many big challenges – our partners continue to work with people with a disability, providing them with hope for a better future, and with help today!
Please scroll through the photos below, with one story first from Tavush, where the project continues, and with the rest of the stories from Gegharkunik, where 'A Healthy Start' officially ended in May of 2011.

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Narine greeting Managing Director Kim Hartzner. Narine and her family are Yezdi Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Armenia, known for being nomads tending their animals on pastures throughout the country. She comes from a very poor family, with the father earning his meagre income as a migrant worker. Narine grew up with her two siblings, her parents and her grandparents in a small wooden shed with the nails sticking out. All three children had medical problems, one brother having problems with his vision, Narine herself having mental problems, cerebral palsy and problems with her feet, and a third child with mental problems. The parents could not provide her with anything, and the Government has never provided Narine with food or a proper education, the parents unaware that those were her rights.