For Immediate Release ~ October 2, 2007
Contact: Sarkis Kotanjian ~ 818-243-6222
| Executive Director Vahe Aghabegians discusses the upcoming projects |
Yerevan, Armenia - Armenia Fund Executive Director Vahe Aghabegians, businessmen Serjik Movsisian, Georgik Abrahamian and the Rural Development Program staff visited Tavush region’s Khashtarak cluster on September 28, 2007. The aim of the visit was to look into specific solutions for the economic facilitation component of the Rural Development Program.
| Azatamut is only 2 kilometers away from the Armenian-Azeri border |
The main economic problem in the Khashtarak cluster and the border villages in general is their lack of access to markets. One of the Armenia Fund’s solutions is establishing trading links with private sector entities with concrete demands. In this case, Mr. Alishian, who owns a food processing plant, expressed his interest in acquiring specific vegetables and fruits from the cluster villages. During a constructive meeting with the mayors of the villages, they discussed potential ways of arranging such cooperation.
“The main mission of the Program is to offer comprehensive infrastructural and economic support to the villages. The vital component of the Program is the creation of a dependable source of income for the village community members”, says Executive Director Vahe Aghabegians. “Infrastructure alone is not a solution, there needs to be economic stimuli to maintain the system and make it work as a practical development tool.”
During this trip, Armenia Fund’s working group also visited Azatamut community. While the other five villages in the cluster (Aknaghbyur, Ditavan, Lusahovit, Lusadzor, Khashtarak) possess cultivable land and offer a logically straightforward path of economic development, Azatamut does not. Established in the 1970s, the village housed the workers of a nearby factory. With the fall of the Soviet empire and the severing of trading bonds, the factory stopped functioning, leaving most of the community members unemployed. The village has no arable land and a significant part of the population earns its income from labor migration.
Part of the village cluster concept is combining the economic resources of the villages into a single mechanism, thus multiplying the impact of the Rural Development Program economic facilitation projects. Azatamut community has the potential of housing a key part of the complex economic solution for the cluster including a milk collection center, a slaughter house, a fruit conservation point and other facilities which would serve the needs of all cluster villages.
“I welcome Armenia Fund’s new initiative. Our people need this kind of projects. Our people need to feel that there is help coming. Our people need to know that life will improve”, says Ashot Amirjanian, the mayor of Azatamut.
The community has 2,800 residents. The village is located 153 km away from Yerevan and 2 km away from the Azeri border.
“We have chosen border villages as the main focus of the Rural Development Program as they have vital strategic and economic significance for the future of the country. Integrating these communities into our country’s economy will revive these villages and prevent hopelessness and emigration”, says Mr. Aghabegians.
Armenia Fund, Inc., is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation established in 1994 to facilitate large-scale humanitarian and infrastructure development assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Since 1991, Armenia Fund has rendered more than $160 million in development aid to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Armenia Fund, Inc. is the U.S. Western Region affiliate of "Hayastan" All-Armenian Fund. Tax ID# 95-4485698
