Arpen Center Has Supported Pregnant Artsakh Women for Almost Three Decades

On the other hand, Gurgen Melikyan always worked as a volunteer. Najarian said, “He has never taken a penny for any of the work that he has done. It is pretty remarkable. He goes and comes back and never takes anything for it.”

“The Arpen Center has helped people get more nutrition than they would get otherwise,” Najarian said. Just as importantly, she continued, “I think that one of the things that it gives people, especially in the early years, from the 1990s to the early 2000s, is hope. When I would go and visit, which I would do often before, women would say to me that it is so wonderful to know that there is somebody thinking about us, that we are not forgotten. That was always very touching.”

In 1999, Najarian published a memoir about her work in Artsakh and Armenia called A Call from Home: Armenia and Karabagh, My Journal.

Improved Situation Leads to Scaling Down

About five years ago, the Arpen Center decided to only provide aid to women in need who already had at least three children and were again pregnant. Najarian said, “It is amazing that there were so many people in that category. In those circumstances you would think that there were not too many people. The reason that we did that was that on the one hand it was becoming very expensive there and difficult for us to sustain the program, plus things were better. People were working and the feeling that they were not getting food or were impoverished was not as great as before. There were other organizations helping and the government was giving supplements to pregnant women too.”

As part of this process, the Armenian Health Alliance closed about three years ago. Najarian said she stopped active fundraising even earlier, around 10 years ago. She said she was not a good fundraiser in any case, and hated asking for money. The Health Alliance established a small primary care center as a pilot program in Gyumri in 1994, which worked in difficult conditions for some years, and also helped hospitals.

Over its lifetime the Health Alliance was able to help other organizations, providing them with 501(c)3 status when they began, such as the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry, started by Dr. Frieda Jordan. It worked as an umbrella organization until the fledgling organizations went off on their own paths and didn’t need the help of the Alliance any longer, Najarian explained.

While the aid provided by the Arpen Center was reduced, the food supplementation continued. “It has survived all this time thanks to Gurgen [Melikyan],” Najarian said. “I am not there so I can’t do it. He goes every three or four weeks, when he can.”

There is only one staff person at the Center in Stepanakert, and she is the director, Arpen Galstyan, the daughter of former director Sargis Galstyan.

Melikyan reported that at present there are 72 pregnant women benefiting from the assistance provided by the center. The majority have already had some children, with forty being mothers of four or five children, and there is even a woman with 11 children in the group.

Geographically, the women hail from various areas: 14 women are from Stepanakert city, 19 from the Askeran region, 3 displaced from the Hadrut region, 8 displaced from Shushi, 7 displaced from Kashatagh, 2 displaced from Martakert region, 1 displaced from the Shahumyan region, and 3 from the Martuni region.

The pregnant visit every month, starting when 3 ½ months pregnant, five times, Melikyan said. They receive sugar powder, rice, cracked wheat, vermicelli, macaroni, and oil. They are also given sweaters and clothing sewn in Armenia. One month after giving birth, they again receive this aid. In recent years, the Gurgen Melikyan Multichildren Family Foundation of Kashatagh helped the Center.

This foundation itself also gave financial aid to those who have children. When a woman gives birth to a fourth child or more, she is given 50,000 drams. As the average salary is 60-65,000 dram a month, Melikyan said this is a substantial sum. The Melikyan Foundation does other related philanthropic activities, such as supporting Armenians displaced from Berdzor, Shushi, Hadrut and other areas of Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan with items like cows, refrigerators, washing machines, televisions and college tuition, planting trees in Artsakh and publishing Armenological books. The Melikyan Foundation (www.gurgenmelikyan.com) has nonprofit status in the US, where donors contribute to support its work (Gurgen Melikyan Multichildren Family Foundation of Kashatagh, 501 W. Glenoaks Blvd. #104, Glendale, CA 91202).

The Artsakh blockade that began last December has naturally affected the operations of the Arpen Center. However, it has found a way to continue to operate. Melikyan said that it pays the cost of coupons from the state which allow pregnant women to receive their provisions from stores in Artsakh. “The authorities believe in our work. It is difficult but we are able to do this. The provisions right now are not sufficient but what we are doing is still a big assistance for the women, because the Arpen Center is giving the money. It is a little less than before the blockade, but we still give oil, rice, sugar and so forth.”

Future

Najarian asserted that as soon as the Lachin road will open, Melikyan will visit, and, she said, “there will definitely be an ongoing need for the center’s work.”

“This is what in the future, if we continue, I would like to see more,” she related, “making sure they [pregnant women] get the multivitamins that are needed, to be sure that the nutritional substances meet the daily requirements of pregnant women.”

She said that with the help of Kim Hekimian, Assistant Professor of Nutrition in Pediatrics and the Institute of Human Nutrition of Columbia University, who also worked at the American University of Armenia’s School of Health, a study was done through the latter school assessing nutritional needs. However, Najarian said, “It is difficulty to supply exactly what is needed because, for one thing, there are differences in what people think they need, and what a medical professional thinks they need. You might give them something but they are not going to eat it because it is not in their tradition.”

The Arpen Center experienced one such situation in the past, when it attempted to buy fresh milk from local farmers for the women. Najarian said it turned out too difficult to manage. Among other things, the children would drink the milk instead of the mothers, and that was not the real purpose. Some of the mothers also didn’t like milk. Najarian exclaimed, “It got really interesting, the cultural differences that you knock your head up against, and you say, I never thought of this.”

In her 80s now, Najarian remains active in Armenian humanitarian affairs. She is an advisory trustee for the Tufenkian Foundation, which is organizing a primary care project in the Martuni region. During the current Artsakh blockade, she has been working to get non-Armenian global health organizations involved in remedying the situation.