It’s getting a little old now, but the issues remain the same — poverty, children enrolled into residential care, conflict resolution, landmines, and democracy — so I’ve decided to make the electronic PDF version of my book, Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy available for download. The book was meant to be a vehicle for raising such issues in the Diaspora, but apart from one or two presentations to the London-Armenian community, few were interested.

Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy

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Articles and photographs cover issues as diverse as socially vulnerable families, children enrolled into residential institutions, mental health, landmines and UXO in Nagorno Karabagh and on the border with Azerbaijan, resettlement in the territory between Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh and the impact of the Rose Revolution in the neighboring Republic of Georgia on Armenia.

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After visiting Georgia’s second largest city of Kutaisi at the beginning of the year for the Newport Kutaisi Association and EveryChild, the U.S. branch of the Salvation Army yesterday contacted me regarding using one of my images for the front cover of a brochure they’ll be producing. They specifically requested the use of one image included in the audio slide show presentation I produced for the Newport Kutaisi Association and EveryChild.

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After Myrthe reported that she was picking up up more accesses to her site from people searching on Google for Gagik Tsarukian (aka Dodi Gago) and his daughter, The Armenian Observer also reported the same, as did I. However, it was Observer who appeared to discover why exactly after Myrthe concluded it must have something to do with the recent marriage of Tsarukian’s daughter.

Observer even managed to find a video on YouTube showing the celebrations which more significantly gave us a rare and unique look into the controversial house that is home to perhaps Armenia’s richest and most powerful oligarch. Kronstadt on The Armenian Libertarian-Socialist Movement offers his opinion on Tsarukian’s estate in a country that can still be considered poor by international standards.

When I first watched this video, the first instinct was Anger – pure anger! But then one needs to sober up and look at all this in calm analytical and historical perspectives. This is not Oligarchy!!! “Oligarkhia” is a stupid apologetic term applied by the social scientists to some post-Soviet republics, with a connotation of “a peculiar case of capitalist development that went *slightly* off track” … as if Capitalism is designed to deliver general prosperity and long-term balance for all, but in some rare cases small anomalies such as oligarkia are possible. Bullfuckingshit. This is Capitalism, and that’s all there is to it. And oligarchy is the integral and inseparable part in its development.

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As I watched this video the second time, I couldn’t help but recall the videos from pre-Castro Cuba… it was all the same. Cuba was a satellite puppy of America with very small white minority owning everything there was to own and indulging themselves in endless endeavours of bourgeois decadence, while the vast majority of population was living in shanty-towns and townships with no education, healthcare, regular food - toiling in sugar cane plantations and tobacco fields. And sooner or later people did rebel - people rebelled and as we have seen in so many other places the Communist forces hijacked the revolution.

My instinct is to wait - wait until the conditions have matured to the point when people will see that it is not the Individual leader or the Will to do good that is the question, but the Structure of the economical system that cultivates these material and cultural conditions, and the social and political contradictions and paradoxes. Until people themselves realise it that capitalism is not the right path to democracy, free-entrepreneurship and participatory-politics, until that day revolutions will either be shipwrecked or replaced by dictatorships.

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Copies of a collection of my articles and photographs, Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy, published by the Gomidas Institute are available at The Club at 40 Tumanian Street in Central Yerevan. One reader wrote the following on the book in November.

Buy this book! I want to recommend it to everybody. I got it visiting Armenia several weeks ago and its impressive photos are still appealling to me, its texts a demand. This excellent journalist is keeping his solidarity to the poor, outcasted people, and the book is a lesson.

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Nursery Home of Estery, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKA 2007

After putting together the audio photo slide show for the Newport Kutaisi Association, I’ve been informed that a mail shot has been sent out to councilors at Newport County Council informing them of the NKA’s continuing work in Georgia’s second largest city. Nice to see the slide show being linked to and promoted as a means of raising awareness of work being conducted by EveryChild and NKA.

Dear Councillor

Please link to the excellent slideshow of the Everychild project in Kutaisi, our twinned City in Georgia. The project is an example of what can be achieved in this emerging country with our support. Newport City Council is playing a major role in this success. The Social Work team under Penny Lloyd-Evans ran an intensive training programme in Newport for five key social workers from Kutaisi in the Imereti Region in June 2006. The experience and knowledge they took back is transforming the way orphans and children in care are treated in Georgia. Following the success of this project a high level mission from Georgia is visiting London next week and we have been invited to participate.

We commissioned Onnik Krikorian a British photojournalist based in Armenia to record the results so far. There is still a long way to go but with Newport City Council’s support in this project and their lead role in the Local Democracy Agency the future looks very bright.

Catherine Philpott,
Chair of Newport Kutaisi Association

Links:
Audio slideshow of Onnik Krikorian’s recent visit http://www.oneworld.am/photojournalism/kutaisi/
Everychild visit to Newport 2006 http://www.nkta.org/Whatachieved/Socialworkvist06.html
Local Democracy Agency: http://www.nkta.org/Aerilonline/Newonline/valmorbidareport.html

Incidentally, I’m interested in pursuing more work in Georgia as well as Armenia so any organizations, charities or media outlets interested in my ongoing work on key themes and issues such as poverty, children in institutions, mental health, democracy, landmines and minorities can contact me via the email address in the right hand column of this page.

After EurasiaNet put together my photos with audio commentary for the 12 May parliamentary election , I’ve started to look at doing the same for new work. Actually, I’ve always put together my work in formats such as Macromedia Flash, but used text instead of audio to set the background. Anwyay, here’s a first attempt to change that. It’s on social work and de-institutionalization in Georgia for the Newport Kutaisi Association.

[…] poverty levels remain high with some families having no choice but to place their children into State-run Children’s Homes and Boarding Schools. Commonly referred to as orphanages, 85-90 percent of 5,400 children enrolled into such institutions actually have parents. Of concern are recent reports from the international Children’s Charity, EveryChild, which warn that institutional care can seriously hinder a child’s development.

As a result, the London-based organization, which also has an office in Tbilisi, is now working with the Georgian government, and in particular its Ministry of Education and Science, to reintegrate such children back into their biological families or to place them in foster care. According to EveryChild, over 500 children have already been removed from institutions, including one hundred who have been reunited with their biological families.

Other organizations are also working to assist children from institutions in finding employment when they become adults through vocational training programs. Centers for the rehabilitation of children with disabilities, another group at risk of being institutionalized, are also being opened in urban centers, including the second largest city of Kutaisi.

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Ministry of Education & Science Educational Resource Centre, Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

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Outskirts of Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

As mentioned in the comments section of one of the previous posts, part of any successful attempt at reintegration of institutionalized children into their biological families and with foster or adopting parents has to be the provision of oversight and monitoring through visits by social workers.

As I also mentioned in another previous post, many of Kutaisi’s social workers at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Georgia visited Newport in Wales last year and are also upgrading their knowledge and skills through a TACIS Tempus project at Tbilisi State University.

Tbilisi State University will be training social workers at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and the curriculum is being devised with cultural traditions and differences in mind. To plug the skills gap before the students qualify, the work and expertise of those already working in social work type roles will be recognised with a certificate. This certificate course has already begun, with forty mature students. It is hoped that these successful students will provide placements for the students on the four year social work course which begins in September 2006.

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World Vision Vocational Training, Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

As part of the process of deinstitutionalization in Georgia, the Ministry of Education and Science also works with local partners such as World Vision who also have their own team of social workers and complement state services with additional opportunities such as vocational training and group homes.

It’s interesting to read the background to a problem that also exists in Armenia on a larger scale, but is rarely reported in comparison to Georgia, although I’ve tried.

GEORGIA - Infants and children in Georgia are at a greater risk of being abandoned and placed in an institution if they have a disability or come from poor or dysfunctional families. 85 to 90% of the 5400 children in orphanages and other residential institutions in Georgia actually have parents.

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In response to this crisis, World Vision, together with EveryChild, UNICEF and the Ministries of Labour, Health, Social Affairs & Education, have implemented the first ‘Prevention of Infant Abandonment and Deinstitutionalisation’ project in Georgia (PIAD) . A mother & infant shelter has been opened to provide counsel and assistance to mothers ‘at risk’ of abandoning their infants. They will also have access to employment counselling, vocational and business training and small group loans through World Vision’s Micro Enterprise Development program.

The project will also demonstrate alternative family and community based care for infants, including fostering, national adoption and reintegration with the birth family.

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Nursery Home of Estery, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

I’ve been to so many boarding schools in Armenia that it’s not surprising their equivalents in Georgia are pretty much identical in terms of conditions with the wallpaper coming off crumbling walls in rooms connected by dark and poorly ventilated corridors. However, the one main difference was that in Georgia many of these soviet era institutions are emptying whereas in Armenia they are not.

At the confusingly named “Nursery Home of Estery” on the outskirts of Kutaisi, for example, there were only 18 children from approximately 90 originally enrolled and attending. This is because of the continuing policy of deinstutionalization in the Republic of Georgia and the provision of family-based alternative forms of care for vulnerable and abandoned children.

Georgia has over 4,500 children currently living in orphanages, and the vast majority of them (86%) are not in fact orphans but have been abandoned by their families who have been hit hard by poverty and other social problems. These families have no form of assistance or safety net and for those living on the edge, the institutions are the only available option.

Institutional care, however, can seriously hinder a child’s development, as they don’t receive the proper care and attention they need to flourish.

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Infant House, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

As mentioned in the last post, I’ve just returned from Georgia where I was documenting social workers working for the Ministry of Education and Science in the country’s second largest city, Kutaisi. The work was arranged through the British charity EveryChild and undertaken for the Newport Kutaisi Association (NKTA) who brought many of those social workers to the UK last year on a study visit.

The idea for this training visit came when Newport Kutaisi Association’s vice chair, Catherine Philpott and treasurer Sonia Fisher made a visit to Kutaisi last year. They saw at first hand the conditions in the orphanages and the pilot scheme that has been established to improve the status of children’s welfare. It is estimated that in Georgia there are 4,000 children and young adults living in 50 or so soviet style state institutions which lack basic necessities for a decent life. Catherine & Sonia travelled under the auspices of EveryChild, a British Aid Agency working mainly in Eastern Europe with a base in Georgia. EveryChild are consultants to the Georgian government and both are very committed to raising the standards of child welfare.

It is hoped that this exchange will be the beginning of a partnership in social work between Newport & Kutaisi where ideas, skills and friendship will become another aspect of the work of the Newport Kutaisi Association.

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