HIV/AIDS Awareness Class, School No. 43, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF 2005

Over at Armyouth, Pradafreak posts about a recent action aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS among youth in Armenia. The action was held on 12 December 2006 in cooperation with the APEC NGO who I wrote about for UNICEF in 2005. However, despite recent attempts to raise awareness, the action revealed that most young Armenians are uninformed about HIV/AIDs and especially with regards to how to prevent infection.

A lot of students from the faculty of sociology volunteered for the project, so we could manage it. Special mini - test forms were designed, and our volunteers asked those questions to the students. At the end of the questions the right answers were given to them, so they can read them after being intrigued from the questions.

So here are the results: Out of 916 surveys - Only 5% was fully informed about the case, 14% is enough informed about the issue, 73 % has a very little and wrong knowledge , 8% doesn’t have any idea about this big issue.

So as the results showed our students are not informed about the case, and I should admit they were not that interested in the presentation, some of them even thinks that its not a problem for the Armenian society, some girls found it offensive to answer to the questions about HIV / AIDs and STDs etc.

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Specialized Boarding School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimeda 2002

Since 2002, one of my main projects has been the issue of children enrolled into state-run residential institutions. Despite its smaller size, somewhere between 11-12,000 children attend or reside in over 50 boarding schools and children’s homes in Armenia. In neighboring Georgia, where initiatives to de-institutionalize children are years ahead of Armenia, there are only 5,000. It’s therefore with great interest that I read ArmeniaNow.com’s article on plans to close 12 specialized boarding schools.

Angry teachers have condemned a government decision to close secondary schools for nearly 1,000 orphaned and socially vulnerable children.

Officials in the Ministry of Education and Science want to integrate children in the 12 special secondary institutions into mainstream schools. They argue that separate schools for orphans and other children who lack proper parental care simply isolates them from the rest of society.

But staff in the schools insist that their children face special problems and that closure will damage their emotional and educational welfare.

According to the government’s decision, the special schools should be converted into regular secondary schools by the end of 2007. Special boarding centers would be created to meet the needs of children who were unable to go home.

“These children are by no means deficient compared to their peers, they don’t need special education; so why separate them from the society?! Implementation of this decision will integrate them into society,” says Louiza Gharibyan, representative of the Agency for Family Issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues.

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UNICEF Armenia / Onnik Krikorian

In a report released last year, the United Nations warned that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) faced one of the fastest rates of HIV infection in the World. In fact, it is believed that 1.8 million people are carriers of the disease in the region. Yet, even though countries such as Armenia are considered to have a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS, there are concerns that this might not remain the case for much longer.

Naira Sargsyan, UNICEF’s Young Person’s Health and Development Officer, says that the situation is already beginning to change, but not necessarily for the better.

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By Onnik Krikorian

Lusine was just 16 years old when she was trafficked from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates. A year earlier she had married against the wishes of her parents, but found herself on the streets when she could no longer tolerate the beatings she received from her husband. When she left her native Gyumri for the Armenian capital, Yerevan, it wasn’t long before she was approached by a man interested in exploiting her predicament.

“He said he could help me find work as a waitress in Germany,” says Lusine. “I jumped at the chance. I thought I could make some money abroad and get my life back on track.”

But because she was technically still a minor, Lusine didn’t have a passport. Her new ‘friend,” however, said he could supply her with one for $1,000. Then, in possession of travel documents stating that she was older than she actually was, she traveled to Tbilisi, capital of the neighboring Republic of Georgia, with seven other girls. From there, the girls traveled to Moscow, but rather than end up in Germany, they were instead was put on a plane to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Upon their arrival, the girls were then deprived of their passports and presented to an Arab who had paid $5,000 for Lusine and her companions, and who now had to work as sex workers servicing clients in Dubai, capital of the UAE. Now effectively in “debt” to her new “owner,” Lusine received 10 men a night on average at a local hotel in order to wipe the slate clean and to secure her freedom.

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Unless something extraordinary happens before I leave for England tomorrow morning, this will be my last post on this blog. I will be travelling back home for a workshop sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Oxford Internet Institute on the role of the internet in civic participation and democratic conversations in the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and also attending the Second Annual Global Voices Summit in London.

I shall also be holding an event in London to which everyone interested in Armenia and the South Caucasus is invited. Details can be found below.

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© UNICEF Armenia / Onnik Krikorian

The last of five posters photographed and designed for UNICEF in Armenia. The other four are here, here, here and here.

© UNICEF Armenia / Onnik Krikorian

Saw the proof prints of the posters I photographed and designed for UNICEF today. I’ve already posted low res versions of three of the five here, here and here. A fourth is above, and today I heard that UNDPI also want to use it for their 2006 calendar. On Monday, UNICEF should start the process of getting the proper posters printed. They’ll be 61 x 45.5 cm.

The english language version of a book I also wrote, photographed and designed for UNICEF in Armenia can be downloaded in electronic format here. Physical copies of the English and Armenian version are available from the UNICEF office in Yerevan.

© Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF Armenia

© Onnik Krikorian / UNICEF Armenia

© UNICEF Armenia / Onnik Krikorian

Shelter for Vulnerable Mothers and Children, Infant House, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia © Everychild / Onnik Krikorian

As part of the process of de-institutionalization in the Republic of Georgia, the Tbilisi Infant House has a shelter for single and vulnerable mothers and children. The shelter is a joint project between Everychild, UNICEF and World Vision.

The groundbreaking PIAD project, a partnership between World Vision, UNICEF, EveryChild and the Georgian Ministries of Health & Education aims to prevent infants and children from being abandoned, create alternatives to institutions and develop policies to create and sustain a social network system throughout Georgia.

More on the shelter can be read here and here.