OUR AUTHORITIES FEEL SHAME AT SPEAKING ABOUT HOMELESS PEOPLE

Azg/arm
01 Feb 05

The photo exhibition of Onik Grigorian was dedicated to Bash, Gor,
Mikael, Ruzan and Natasha, homeless people that dwell in the park by
the House of Chamber Music, in the ground floor of a newly built
building on the Northern Avenue, in front of the edifice of the US
embassy, etc. The exhibition was held at Narekatsi Art Union. Bash,
one of them is dead already. He passed away in eight days after being
photographed. His friends gathered in the park near the House of
Chamber Music and buried him in the cemetery envisaged for the
homeless people and put the regular number on his grave on the day he
died.

Onik Grigorian is bewildered why the Armenian authorities don’t do
anything to help the homeless. For this very reason, it is already a
month that he wanders in the streets of Yerevan, talks to the
homeless, makes friends with them and tries to help them somehow.

“There are homeless people in almost all countries of the world. But
shelters are being built for them to spend the winter, the hardest
season of the year, so that these homeless people don’t get frozen. At
least once a daythe homeless are given hot food in these countries. 19
homeless people died in Yerevan in a month,” Onik Grigorian said. He
works with Edik Baghdasarian, head of the Union of Investigative
Journalists, and prepare photos for Hetq Internet weekly.

“Our authorities don’t want to accept that we have the problem of
homeless people in Armenia. It seems to be a disgraceful phenomenon
for them. For ten days, we have been trying to take these people to
the hospital. We failed to take them all. Only one of them was taken
there but he died soon. Neither the society, nor the state
institutions want to help the homeless, to support them morally and
psychologically,” Edik Baghdasarian is sure.

He said that mainly the Diaspora Armenians expressed readiness to help
them. The Association of the Armenian Students of New York send $200,
and 3 American Armenian physicians will arrive in Armenia to render
them medical aid free of charge. Not a single local Armenian physician
helped the homeless and only the members of the union put bandages on
their wounds. The homeless are telling about their lives, their
relatives, their disappointments in the film shot in association with
Yerkir Media TV. The stray dogs are the most faithful and close
friends for most of them, as they feel more confident and clam with
the dogs than with the human beings.

The representative of RA Labor and Social Security Ministry thinks
that the society should deal with the issue of the homeless and not
the state. In the course of the recent few years, they have been
elaborating a program on creating a social center for the homeless,
but it is so hard to find a donor organization for sponsoring this
initiative. At present, the bill on socialsupport is submitted to RA
Government. Being approved it will be adopted at RA National
Assembly. According to her, the new law will make the homeless of our
country more protected.

It is rather surprising but the Armenian Church also is rather
indifferent to the problem of the homeless. Not a single
representative of Araratian diocese was present at the arrangement
though they had been invited. Meanwhile, they should teach lessons of
mercy and generosity by practicing them in everyday lifeâ=80¦

By Ruzan Poghosian