Will We Get a Youth Board With "the Red Cross Spirit" in Their Blood?

“We want to make our work more productive, so we decided to make a youth board” explains the youth leader of Gyumri, Lusine Alikharyan. Last week youth leaders from each of the regions in Armenia were gathered to discuss the future development and organization of the youth department.

The youth department has been working on re-organizing their structures for about 4 years now, and the establishment of a youth board is one of the final steps.

Lusine has been a volunteer for 8 years, and explains that Red Cross is like her second home. “I’m a Red Cross volunteer in my blood” she says before she continues to explain how the youth board will be organized. ”The youth board will focus on different spheres; among these are recruitment, international cooperation, dissemination, fundraising, development of educational programs, and regional development.”

The monthly meetings are important says Lusine, “after every meeting we return to the regions with new ideas and enthusiasm. I would like such evens to be held more often, and not only for the leaders but also for the volunteers.”

At the meeting the youth leaders were asked to nominate active volunteers as candidates for the youth board. The elections will be held in June, and hopefully the candidates will be devoted volunteers with “the Red Cross spirit” in their blood just as Lusine Alikharyan.

Renovation Rescuers

The Norwegian Refugee Counsel (NRC) has decided to help us renovate our new Smiley Club room in the Shirak dormitory. After working for about 10 years with building and renovating houses for refugees in Armenia, they have a lot of experience from the country.

Nils A. Sivertsen Country director of the NRC

One of their specialists took a look at our new room and concluded that a lot of renovation is needed. “The bathroom & toilet above needs a total rehabilitation; additional concrete on the floor, new tiles, repair of the water system.” Your" room needs to have new ceiling, plastering, painting and new floor.”

The NRC does not have the possibility to do the actual work, but has offered to pay for the renovation. A wave of happiness and relief spread trough the office of the youth department when they heard about the good news. Money, or lack of money, is always an issue here, and now we know that the money we intended to use for renovation can be used on more concrete activities for the children.

The NRC is facing out of Armenia, after having achieved their mission of giving all the refugees in Armenia a home. However, in a room in Yerevan, the organizations good will can be seen for years to come when volunteers from the Red Cross have activities and lessons for children at the Shirak dormitory.

English Speaking Volunteers Needed!

During breaks at the Linguistic University in Yerevan, the students were given information about the Smiley Club program. We were especially targeting students who speak English to strengthen the English lessons with the children. The response from the students was positive, and we managed to inform over 80 students about our program. When asked, many of them were so interested that they put down their name and phone number. Tomorrow we’ll go to the Teachers College to spread the word about Smiley Club. So that hopefully we’ll have many new volunteers working on strengthening the English skills of the Smiley Club children.

The Cinderella Premiere

The storyteller goes out on the stage and the play starts. In the audience there are staff and volunteers from The Red Cross. Cinderella is cleaning the floor while the step mum and the two step sisters are playing the piano.

The Kings servant enters the stage and gives out invitations to the ball to the audience. He then knocks on the Cinderella’s door and gives her the invitation. Cinderella tells her step mum and her step sisters who are exited to go to the ball. But, as you all know from the story they try their best to make sure that Cinderella can’t go, by giving her lots of tasks to do. Cinderella needs help, and she gets it from her little friends. The mice and birds enter the stage and helps Cinderella clean and make her dress. The audience applauds the cute children. Then suddenly the all start to laugh. It turns out that 5 year old Yurik has lost his mice ears down in front of his eyes. While the kids are dancing, we are changing Cinderella’s dress backstairs, and when she comes out she is wearing a beautiful pink silk dress. The step sisters, mean as they are, get jealous of her beauty and ruin her dress. Luckily for Cinderella the fairy is on her side and with the help of the mice and birds they manage to make a new dress for her. On her way to the King’s palace she is almost knocked down, when one of the volunteers turns around a big poster, that transfers the setting from Cinderella’s room to the palace.
When Cinderella enters the King’s palace the room freezes and the prince falls immediately in love. Unfortunately for the prince, it’s soon 12 o’clock, so Cinderella has to leave. On the way back to her house, she runs in between the audience and looses her shoe. The prince picks it up and declares that he wants to marry the women that the shoe belongs to. The step mum locks Cinderella up in the room so when the King’s servant comes with the shoe she is not there. However, she manages to break out from her room and enters the stage. The Prince takes Cinderella’s hand and while the audience is applauding the rest of the children walk out on the stage singing “Happy end happy end.”
Even though I don’t think the Prince and Cinderella really are in love, I’m quite sure that all the children had a happy end of the day when they were sitting after the play eating cake and drinking juice.

Our New Smiley Club Room

We have waited for over 6 months to see our new Smiley Club room. Our application has been sent from desk to desk, and without permission it has been impossible to se the room. We have heard that it needs reconstruction and that it is in the basement, and today we saw it with our own eyes for the first time.

A rotten smell hits us when we step into the room. When you look up to the ceiling, you understand why it smells. “The toilet in the room upstairs is leaking” explains the lady working at the dormitory. She tells us that the room was renovated about 3 1\2 years ago, but that nothing was done with the room above it. So now there is a big whole in the ceiling, and water is leaking down and ruining the floor. Although a lot of money and time needs to be spent on the reconstruction of the ceiling, the room has a lot of potential. It is big, and has a nice location next to the playground. When we leave the dormitory some of the children hanging around in the playground ask us when the activities will start, and if we need any help to clean the room and area around. It is comments like this that make you forget the 6 months of waiting, writing letters, calls and frustration. The children are waiting for us at our new Smiley Club room, and we’ll do everything to make sure that they don’t have to wait for half a year for us.

I Want To Improve My English Skills!

Armenians start learning English when they are 10 years old, but unfortunately many of them speak only a few words of English.

At Smiley Club the children are suppose to get English lessons, but these lessons are not always very effective. There are too many children in too many age groups. We therefore decided to invite the teenagers who used to participate in Smiley Club activities to the Red Cross office for English lessons. After the lessons the children are invited to help the “jewellery group” to make necklaces and other accessories.

Rita, one of girls working in the Youth Department made a small test to check the children’s skills. Their level varies a lot, but they all have one thing in common. They know the alphabet, and they read very well. However, there are two mayor problems; when asked to explain what they were reading about they can’t, because they just know how to read the words but the words has no meaning to them. Second, they are not able to speak any English. When asked easy questions they are not able to respond.

Although the teenagers’ skills are not very impressive, their will and desire to learn English is striking. Most of the people who speak English in Armenia have had private lessons, but the children that we work with can not afford that. So our free English lessons are a great opportunity for them. Hopefully can our lessons give them the extra push they need to step in to the world of English.

Almost there;It’s 8th of May, and it is 90 Minutes before the Cinderella Premiere

There are costumes everywhere, the children just arrived at the Red Cross office, and we have 1 ½ hour before the play starts. Before that we have to make 20 children into mice, birds, kings, queens and Cinderella. We also need to go trough the whole play one more time to make sure that the kids know where to enter and leave the stage. Seems like a lot to do on only 90minuttes?

The 8 youngest children are birds and mice. They are between 5 and 7 years old, and standing in front of me with joy and stubbornness in their eyes. I imagine that their thoughts are something similar to this “I want to look like a bird. I want to wear yellow feathers on my head, and have yellow shiny fabric tied around my arms. But do I want to listen to this Norwegian girl standing in front of me, trying to say something in a language that I guess is supposed to be Armenian?”

Luckily for me, the desire to look like a bird or mice wins, and the children stay semi calm while the volunteers and I put on their costumes. Then it is time for make up; even though the youngest ones don’t seem very interested in how they look with rouge and mascara, they are very eager to get their face made up before their friends. The queen, the fairy, the two step sisters, the mum and Cinderella are all a bit older, and extremely excited to wear make up. After they are finished they run over to me and ask; “How do I look, how do I look.” I look at them and their dresses and say “Beautiful, you look absolutely beautiful.” The smile I get in return melts any heart.

Ok, that was the costumes. Now, we need to go through the whole play from beginning to end. At this point my stress level has gone from moderate to high. There are so many things we need to remember, changing costumes, guiding the children in and out of the stage, making them understand that they need to be quite and sit still so the audience won’t see them while they are not on stage, and the list goes on.

The run trough is horrible. Many of the volunteers have been busy with exams when we have had the practices of the play at the Red Cross office, so they are not updated on the latest details on the play. The children are not concentrating, and they music does not work.

It is 15 min until the play is supposed to start, and my head is boiling. We bring all the children in to a separate room. While volunteers and staff members from the whole Red Cross family sits down in, and the Secretary General of the National Society starts to speak, I run around downstairs looking for the volunteer who is responsible for moving props on the stage. I can’t find him, but have to go upstairs. It is my time to say a couple of words.

I congratulate us with the international Red Cross day, tell that we have been working for about 3 months with the play, and say that I hope they will enjoy it. Then the play starts.

A world of fairytales

20 kids between the age of 3-14 are running around in the Red Cross headquarter in Yerevan. It is two days before the premiere of the Cinderella theatre performance, but the children do not seem very concerned about it. The youngest ones are jumping around in their bird and mice costumes, while the older ones use every possibility to play a note or two on the piano.

Practice makes perfect!

Cinderella’s room.

The last weeks have been filled with preparations for the play. We have visited the dormitory practicing lines and dance moves with the children. Tried to figure out a rather complicated system of money transfers and recite systems when shopping. Making costumes and last but maybe the most challenging; bringing the small actors to the Red Cross office to run trough the play.

The premiere will be on the Red Cross day, 8th of May for Red Cross volunteers and staff.
Later this month we will invite the children’s parents and family. After the performance there will be drinks and cake.

Making costumes.

While sweating in the office, looking out at the sun outside, the premiere day seems far away. And lots of work is left before we can enjoy these cute children turn the Red Cross headquarter into the world of fairytales.