Gavar Special School

The proprietor of Envoy Hostel, Erik Carapetian, Mr. Carapetian’s Father, Envoy Hostel employee, Emma, and friend of Envoy Hostel, Joe Levonian visited Gavar Special School to visit the children and view the conditions of the school. They brought with them small gifts for the children from Australia.

Envoy Hostel has been a long term supporter of the volunteers of Gavar Special School. In addition to this support, Envoy Hostel gave funds to the roof repair project. The staff and volunteers of Gavar Special School would like to thank Envoy Hostel’s owners and employees for their kind support.

The staff and volunteers are very happy that Envoy Hostel is becoming a community leader showing that through responsible business, many good things will come to Armenia. We wish Envoy Hostel continued success and welcome future cooperation. To show the school’s gratitude, Erik and Joe were presented with handmade needleworks prepared by the students of Gavar Special School.

From June 11 to 14, Gavar Special School and the Lots of Sun Foundation were able to put on an excellent Green Camp for Gavar area students. What is green Camp you may ask? Well, Green Camp is an environmental awareness camp focusing on teaching children about the world of earth, trees, and animals that live in Armenia.

Last year Gavar Special School had a Green Camp in conjunction with Peace Corps, but this year we have had it without the support of Peace Corps. The camp has been a great success. The camp broke the stigmas of exclusion that Gavar Special School carries due to the post-Soviet culture.

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We have been having a debate between staff, volunteers, friends and supporters of Gavar Special School regarding the strategic plan for the school’s development. It is a difficult to decision regarding where to start but we have agreed on the statement, “Gavar Special School must be a safe, warm and stable building that will be the basis of education reform.” With this agreement, it is obvious the first step is to stop the damage being sustained to the Gavar Special School building due to a roof that is riddled with holes.

You can see in the new pictures of the underside of the roof and the damage that is being caused in the school why the roof is the first problem that must be solved. Once the roof has been replaced, a central heating system will be addressed as the children must be warm. We, the staff and volunteers, are hopeful that other opportunities will present themselves that will allow Gavar Special School to improve its education and health services. Gavar Special School is always looking for ways to participate in new projects as it continues to strive to become the model special needs school in Armenia that will have the ability to educate the more than 700 special needs children in the Gegharkunik Region.

Please view the pictures in the Gavar Special School Gallery and read the captions of the pictures for more details. If you have any questions or concerns, do remember that we really would love to hear from you and your ideas so do use the contact form or the comments section below to share your thoughts.

Gavar Special School is very luck to have friends that understand the basic needs of the children must be met in order for them to learn. Focus on Children Now, Inc (FCN) has undertaken a very large project by collecting clothes from around the greater Los Angeles area to help people in Armenia. Gavar Special School is privileged to be the first school to receive a donation. In the spirit of service, sisters, Eileen and Audria Amirian were influential in helping collect a great volume of clothing.

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Gavar Special School is very fortunate to have many friends who wish to see it improve and be able to meet the needs of the special needs children of Gegharkunik Marz. In Los Angeles, California on May 5, 2007 Focus on Children Now, Inc will hold their Annual Gala Dinner and Auction in support of Gavar Special School. It will be a wonderful evening of fun, fellowship, dancing and food. Jason and Tera Sprague will attend and be able to answer all your questions about Gavar Special School’s challenges, joys and future plans.

The evening will feature a silent auction with items made by students of Gavar Special School as well as artists from Abovian and Gavar so bring your competitive spirit!!

If you are interested in attending, please download the details by clicking here. Please do not wait as I am told tickets are going fast. It will be a great night and the ultimate result will be that the special needs children of Gavar Special School will be one step closer to reasonable education and life skills! If you have questions, feel free to send an email through the contact page.

The purpose of http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org is to allow the community of supporters to learn more about what is happening at Gavar Special School and to help you, share the good news with friends, family and other interested people. One of the new additions to http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org is the ability to email each article or page to another person. You can find this link at the bottom of each article. Simply click it and you can send the article to another person via email. Also, http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org will allow you to sign up for RSS and e-mail notification of new content so you will always be up to date! Please know that all e-mail addresses will be held in the strictest of confidence. If you like submitting articles to various social networking sites, there is a list of easy submission icons at the bottom of each article. If your favorite is missing, do let us know!

An exciting development is all the articles and pages are being written in Armenian so all will be in two languages. This is very exciting as it will allow the http://www.GavarSpecialSchool.org to reach more people and expand the community of supporters.

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Celebrations are an important part of the curriculum at Gavar Special School. For special needs children, music and poetry is a wonderful way for them to learn life skills. The Armenian culture has so many wonderful poets and songs that the children enjoy learning new songs and poems to recite.

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8th, the children preformed songs and poems for all of the teachers, staff and students. This particular celebration was a milestone for two students who recited poetry for the first time in front of a group of people. Previously, these children refused to participate, however with caring persistence of the Gavar Special School Teaching Staff, the children gained enough confidence to participate!

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Gavar Special School won a grant for $5,000 from the United States Peace Corps’ Small Project Assistant Grant Project. The project awards up to $5,000 to an organization to carry out a development project. The project that Gavar Special School submitted was to buy 31 new beds so that 31 new students could come to Gavar Special School to study. Currently, the beds are US Army surplus cots which are in awful shape and cannot support the weight of the older students. Using both the cots and the new beds will allow us to accommodate the larger students.

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Over the winter break a few small improvements were made to Gavar Special School. One of the projects was to improve the conditions for the teenage girls by replacing the windows in their dormitory. Seven girls sleep in a room that had 30 year old windows that made no attempt to stop the cold. Even covered in plastic, the situation was very poor. Thankfully, a donation given in the name of Miganoush and Sevan Varteressian allowed the two windows to be replaced with modern double paned windows totaling over 4 square meters. The cost of the windows was just over $712 with installation.

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Gavar Special School has been given a grant to remodel the sewing room by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)! The room was very cold due to malfunctioning windows and the technology over 25 years old! However, this small improvement should have substantial impact.

The purpose of the project is to provide more quality occupational education and therapy. The students will learn how to use sewing equipment to create gloves and other small items which can be sold to keep the project sustainable. Of course, volunteers tell me that this skill is atypical for western societies but for Armenia it will give our students another skill by the time they leave our school which could be used to improve their family situation. We are charged with making the best practical decision we can.

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Gavar Special School is blessed to have a community of people who wish to see the situation improve for special education. The Community is growing with each person’s effort to educate friends and family members about the issues facing special needs students in Armenia. The Staff, Students and Volunteers are very thankful for the help of Armenian Relief Society Mayr Chapter and the New York Armenian Students Association!

Special thanks to Anahid Ugurlayan, President of the Armenian Relief Society Mayr Chapter and her Staff for organizing the event to aid the children of Gavar Special School!

Press Release:

On February 2, 2007, over 50 people from the tri-state area, upstate New York and Washington D.C. braved the cold winter rain to gather at Sortie, a trendy midtown Manhattan lounge, to support a worthy cause - the construction of a roof for the Gavar Special School in Gavar, Armenia. Located in the impoverished Gegharkunik region, the Gavar Special School is dedicated to educating children with special needs. At present, there are nearly 700 special needs children who receive no education (special needs or otherwise) in this region. Indeed, orphanages in Armenia receive five times more funding than special needs schools and only provide half the services.

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