YEREVAN — Noubar Afeyan, the Founder and CEO of a number of successful biotech companies, such as Flagship Pioneering, and co-founder of many philanthropic initiatives such as the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, has established another future-oriented initiative, the Armenian Spiritual Revival Foundation.
The inaugural ceremony for this newly launched Foundation, attended by the Armenian Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan, Mission Director of USAID/Armenia John Allelo, UNICEF Representative in Armenia Christine Weigand, and many of the Foundation’s local and international partners, mental health experts and beneficiaries, was held in Matenadaran on May 17.
The main goal of the event was to present the work done by the Foundation in the preceding months, with a special emphasis on the novel approach to mental health issues, named a “psycho-spiritual revival” journey.
In his welcoming remarks Dr. Afeyan highlighted that the roots of this initiative have been laid well before the 2020 war and that this had been a natural continuation of many successful projects he and his partners, including Ruben Vardanyan — now illegally kept in captivity in Azerbaijan — had so far launched and supported in Armenia. The goal of the Revival Foundation, in his words, is to support those who pass through challenges and associated psychological traumas due to the war or its consequences, and are willing to chart a new path in their lives through a psycho-spiritual healing and recovery journey.
“The origins of this initiative stem from the absolute shock and trauma that we all experienced in 2020, then again in 2022, when Azerbaijan made the life of our compatriots in Artsakh unbearable. I mean the war, then the invasion of the territory of Armenia, and then the ethnic cleansing that we witnessed in September, 2023. I thought we would never again witness such things, after experiencing great suffering 100 years ago and undergoing a century of recovery,” Afeyan said.
The mission of the Armenian Spiritual Revival Foundation is to transform modern approaches to mental health recovery in post-crisis situations, creating and implementing innovative psycho-spiritual approaches. The foundation aims to develop and implement innovative mental health programs rooted in psychology, the Armenian survivalist experience and the centuries-old traditions and spiritual values of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
