What do you want to do today? Draw, draw, draw screams the children. Then they run over to give me a kiss on my cheek. I am relived that their disappointed and frowning faces from last time, when we divided the roles for a theater performance of Cinderella, are gone. Maybe they have understood that not everybody can have the lead role, or they are just happy to see us, and will bring back their sad faces when we start practicing the roles again.
For over 3 years volunteers from the youth department in the Red Cross has arranged activities for poor children. Some of the children have parents that fled to Armenia as a result of the war with Azerbaijan; others are just ordinary children who live in poverty.
Julia Khaehatryan, coordinator of the project and a former volunteer, remembers when they first started Smiley Club.
”I remember the first event when we were taking the children to the puppet theatre, and some of the mums told me that their children could not participate. I did not understand why. I told them that it would be safe, and that we have lots of volunteers that would take care of them. Then one of them said; I have no money to pay for my child to go. I explained to them that the Red Cross would pay for it, and they were so happy.”
A small girl sits next to me and pulls my arm while she is saying something in Armenian; I call for one of the volunteers for a translation. The girl wants me to find a ruler for her. A couple of minutes later she starts talking to me again, maybe she is to young to understand that there are some people who are not fluent in Armenian?
These days the youth department is working with expanding Smiley Club so that The Red Cross can help more vulnerable children with their homework, and take them to the theatre and Tivoli. UN estimates that around 2/3 of the Armenian population lives for under 4 dollars a day. A concern is also that the great economical differences between people is marginalizing parts of the population”.. income inequality and social exclusion of different layers of the population causes high poverty”[1]
Delightfully ignorant about numbers and statistics from UN the children admire each others drawings, and looks for praises from the volunteers. ” It is lovely” I tell them, and are rewarded with a contagious laughter that lures my thoughts away from Armenia’s difficulties and over to an unused paper and some colored pencils that chubby small fingers are waiting impatiently for.
Some hours later the colored pencil are put in their box, the children are given hugs, and we leave, well aware of that next time we’ll rehearse for the play, something which might make some of the children hide their smiles and put on a frowning face.
For over 3 years volunteers from the youth department in the Red Cross has arranged activities for poor children. Some of the children have parents that fled to Armenia as a result of the war with Azerbaijan; others are just ordinary children who live in poverty.
Julia Khaehatryan, coordinator of the project and a former volunteer, remembers when they first started Smiley Club.
”I remember the first event when we were taking the children to the puppet theatre, and some of the mums told me that their children could not participate. I did not understand why. I told them that it would be safe, and that we have lots of volunteers that would take care of them. Then one of them said; I have no money to pay for my child to go. I explained to them that the Red Cross would pay for it, and they were so happy.”
A small girl sits next to me and pulls my arm while she is saying something in Armenian; I call for one of the volunteers for a translation. The girl wants me to find a ruler for her. A couple of minutes later she starts talking to me again, maybe she is to young to understand that there are some people who are not fluent in Armenian?
These days the youth department is working with expanding Smiley Club so that The Red Cross can help more vulnerable children with their homework, and take them to the theatre and Tivoli. UN estimates that around 2/3 of the Armenian population lives for under 4 dollars a day. A concern is also that the great economical differences between people is marginalizing parts of the population”.. income inequality and social exclusion of different layers of the population causes high poverty”[1]
Delightfully ignorant about numbers and statistics from UN the children admire each others drawings, and looks for praises from the volunteers. ” It is lovely” I tell them, and are rewarded with a contagious laughter that lures my thoughts away from Armenia’s difficulties and over to an unused paper and some colored pencils that chubby small fingers are waiting impatiently for.
Some hours later the colored pencil are put in their box, the children are given hugs, and we leave, well aware of that next time we’ll rehearse for the play, something which might make some of the children hide their smiles and put on a frowning face.
[1] Milenium Development Goals Nationalization and Progress: 2005 National Report Armenia. 27.02.2007: http://www.undp.am/docs/mdgs/un_armenia_mdgreport2005eng.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment