Mer Hooys girls and staff
Mer Hooys is a non-profit orphanage in Yerevan bringing hope to at-risk girls. The program provides girls from Armenia an education, a safe place to live and psychological support. The girls in the program come from disadvantaged backgrounds, some having dealt with sex work, addictive behaviors and domestic violence.
Mer Hooys, meaning “our hope,” takes in girls between ages 9-18 and teaches them how to develop tools for a future career outside of the program. Girls that enter the program come “from extremely impoverished families, and either have been, or are in imminent danger of being, placed in boarding schools, crisis facilities or foster care,” according to their website.
Adrienne Krikorian, who is from California, co-founded the program in 2012. “The program is designed to bring young girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, meaning from families that are either a single parent, unemployed parent, no parents living where they’re living, [or] with a grandparent or a relative who can’t really take care of them,” Krikorian told the Weekly. “The idea is to get them out of that environment and into an environment where they’re living full time, going to school [and] getting educated. Education is our number one priority.”
Mer Hooys focuses on girls exclusively, because when boys turn 18 they either enter the army or go into the priesthood. Girls don’t have those options, and as Krikorian says, many “end up on the streets or in human trafficking.”
Some men who leave Armenia for Russia to make money form new families there, forcing the wives or daughters they leave behind to support themselves financially, sometimes through sex work. According to the U.S. Department of States 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, “As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Armenia, as well as victims from Armenia abroad. Armenian women may be exploited in sex and labor trafficking and forced begging within the country.”
Mer Hooys allows these girls another option to continue their education and learn skills to build their careers. The current class at Mer Hooys is made up of 20 girls. They all reside at Mer Hooys full-time and take classes, including English. They each have different passions like carpet making, music, management and more.
Several of the girls in the program attend universities in Yerevan, commuting from the center to classes every day. The Mer Hooys staff supports their education through donations. Many of the girls hold jobs outside of the center.
Krikorian says a majority of the girls also enter the program with post traumatic stress disorder – “you don’t see it, but it’s there.” Mer Hooys employs psychiatrists to address these and other mental illnesses.
During my visit to Mer Hooys, the girls put on a performance with singing, poetry, dancing and more. They often giggled with one another and silently peered at the guests. They were eager to get to the end of the performance so that they could invite the guests to do Armenian dances with them.
Mer Hooys girls and staff
Mer Hooys has several sisters in the program, to avoid separating siblings. Yet it is near impossible to tell who is related, because all the girls share love and close bonds. They call each other sisters, and the older girls make sure the younger ones are taken care of. The girls even look out for the one boy in the center – Jeko, their pet dog.
Some graduates return to Mer Hooys as assistant teachers. One of the graduates returned to Mer Hooys after getting her degree to teach computer lessons. “She worked with us and taught the girls how to use Word, Excel and how to find their class lessons on the computer. We want our graduates to feel valued, but we also don’t want them feeling like they have nowhere to go,” Krikorian said.
Mer Hooys allows graduates over the age of 18 to stay in the house for as long as they need. Residents live independently in their own section of the Mer Hooys building, where they cook their own food while also taking care of the younger girls.
The graduates spoke with excitement as they showed me around their living quarters. They made jokes about their cooking and how some of them have more culinary skills than others. They were very proficient in English and asked many questions, especially about what college life is like in the United States.
Out of the 12 girls in the very first graduating class, 90-percent are living in safe environments, many are married, more than half of them went to university, seven of them graduated from university and two of them have master’s degrees.
Mer Hooys takes the girls on excursions during the summer, such as a recent trip to Dilijan sponsored by the Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief. The girls brought a speaker to listen to music on the journey, despite some adult objections, and sang along with joy to Armenian pop music during most of the trip.
They also go on shopping trips. On a recent shopping trip, Krikorian gave each of the girls $20, which they used to buy T-shirts, shoes and bags. Krikorian was especially surprised to see the joy on a younger girl’s face when she ran out of a store with a pair of shoes designed like Crocs and her excitement to use the leftover money to buy charms for the shoes.
The girls spend their spare time having cooking competitions, playing board games like UNO and playing in the outdoor playground.
The girls at Mer Hooys are filled with spirit and love. The Mer Hooys building provides a safe space for them to live, but the girls bring out the best part of the program: hope.