The Armenia Fund
PR Department
Government Building 3,Yerevan- 0010
Tel.: +(374 10) 52 15 05
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Armenia Fund Experts Visit Tavush
Yerevan, 2 October 2007. 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.
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 inhabitants. 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.
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Hayastan All-Armenian Fund
Public Relations Department
The Armenia Fund is a non-profit making organization established in 1992
with the aim of facilitating humanitarian assistance and infrastructure
development in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. The Fund has 19 affiliate
structures worldwide.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
