Child sponsorship letter from Armenia
20/11/2007
Letter from the SOS Village Director at Kotayk, Armenia
June 2007
Dear Sponsor,
Every time when we sit down to share with you about the recent events and developments in our Village, we know how much you have been looking forward to getting this news. It is always with pleasure that we send you this information as well as our warmest greetings and highest appreciations for your help during this time. It is with your generous support and commitment that our children continue living within a loving and caring family, feeling safe and important, with optimism towards the future. We feel very honored and indebted to you for being part of our big SOS-family.
As you may well know, Armenian Christmas is on 06 January and this is one the beloved events for the children of our Village. It is the day when many, many people visit to the Village, perform concerts for the children and together with the Santa give presents to all the children. The singers of the State Theatre of Song who are all very popular singers visited the Village and performed concert that lasted for 3 hours. This event, which has become a good tradition and the best expression of the caring attitude of the famous people in Armenia, with its interactive elements, brings all the children into the stage to share the positive emotions under the famous lively melodies performed by the singers. It was unforgettable 3 hours for all the children and many of the youngsters who also visited the Village to share the moments of joy.
When speaking about the Christmas it is not possible not to say anything about the TV programme prepared by SHOGHAKAT TV. It was demonstrated on Christmas Eve and it was about one of our SOS-families preparing for the Christmas Event, - decorating the Christmas Tree, preparing meals and cakes. It was such a lively TV programme, flavored with the “untidy” funny cake preparation of the 4-years old Hamlet that we often think it is the best ever TV coverage about the SOS Children’s Village in Armenia, in which the work is highlighted not by words but by the interaction between the children of different ages and between the SOS-mother, - excellent example of a family life. Very often the co-workers gather together to play the DVD version of it, -just to enjoy the results of our work from the side.
At present there are 84 children living in Village. Since the beginning of the year only one child has been admitted in the village, and two sisters have moved to Youth Facility II. It is important to mention that their farewell was quite emotional. The Village Director, the Educators, SOS Mother’s Assistant and some other co-workers were invited to the farewell dinner oganised by the SOS Mother. They wished good luck to the girls and shared their blessings. The girls were deeply touched and could not hold tears. On the one hand, they were glad to start a new period in life, and although a lot of questions seemed to be unclear, there was confidence that everything would be good also in the Youth Facility. On the other hand, although the girls were living in SOS Village less than a year, they developed close ties with all members of SOS family, and especially they were grateful to their mother, who had done her best to revive hope and trust in their broken and disappointed hearts.
The SOS Mother had prepared presents for girls. And before leaving the sisters were photographed with everyone. They could not express their feelings with words but people present could see in their eyes that everything and everyone in the village had become close for the sisters. At present, the girls have already adapted to their new life and conditions. They continue their education in the Yerevan, - the capital city, and yet, they do not forget the village and the SOS family; they often call and visit them.
Another important and interesting event was the christening ceremony of all the children in one of the SOS families, which took place on April 21. All the preparation works have been done personally by the SOS Mother; she has bought 8 crosses for all children (one of whom has moved to Youth facility a year ago), towels (in accordance to Armenian customs the towels for the christening events should be new) and wine (also an important attribute of christening). As a Godfather the SOS Mother’s cousin’s son was chosen who took his obligations with pleasure.
Here I would like to shift from the main topic and talk about the weather which was quiet symbolic on that day. This year there were unpleasant weather surprises during the 3 spring months. There hasn’t been as much snow during any spring as it was this year. While the day before the christening it was snowing heavily as if it was January or February on April 21 the weather became fair and Armenia was shining under the rays of the sun. Coming back to our topic I would like to tell that during ceremony children’s relatives and friends were in the church. They were quite excited and accepted the idea of their children’s christening with great joy.
I think it will be interesting for you to know what we mean by saying “Armenian christening ceremony”. During the ceremony the priest tells to all people about christening denotation, explains a Godfather’s obligations and blesses the crosses, wine and finally the water the children are supposed to wash with. Then the priest puts ambrosia on children’s face, hands and feet, and children should not take bath and wash themselves for 3 days. The ceremony is accompanied with readings from Bible, sacred music and songs. As it was already said, in accordance to the customs, the christened children do not wash themselves for 3 days. On the 3rd day the Godfather washes his god-children personally, and after he pours the trees with this water, so they will grow better and harvest. By the way, when speaking about Christianity, we should not forget that together with the students of the State University our children went to Echmiadzin to see the Cathedral and Armenian Church built on the 4th century.
After the ceremony everybody was invited to the dinner to the SOS Mother’s house. That day was really memorable for SOS family as well as for their relatives. From January, 2007 our organization has begun the supporting program of 2 schools located close to SOS village.
The literary club of which we mentioned in our last report, has been developing and more and more children try to be involved in this group. The children highly appreciated this idea and they show very active participation, namely, they read and learn poems, visit to the museums of famous writers and organize thematic matinees dedicated to the poets.
June 01 is the International Day of Protection of Children and we were very much pleased to see the number of people and organizations offering special programmes to our children. While the famous candy factory GRAND CANDY visited the village with a van filled in with candies to be given to our children by their animators dressed like an Elephant, another company came to share ice-creams. It was in the middle of this joint event when the best friend of our children, the famous singer Kristine Pepelyan entered the vicinity of the Village to share the joy and happiness with the children. The children had 2 hours to enjoy as later on they were invited to a special ceremony, - “Kids Reception” organized by one the famous Yerevan restaurants. The day ended up by dances and joyful games organized by the hosts of the reception. The most important thing of that day was the fact that almost all the organizations and people, who supported our children, highlighted one thing, which can be cited, - “You work with the children 364 days, and so give us a chance to work with them for one day”.
It is a matter of common understanding that the children get their positive energy in the families, and in this sense, the role of the SOS-mothers is of high importance. Hence, the assistance to the SOS-mothers as ever has been in the focus of the supporting staff. The implementation of case discussions that started in the beginning of January has become a very welcoming support towards the work of the SOS-mothers.
The issue of educational level of our children has been under the focus of the whole organization and this year we started an interesting project to support the schools which are attained by our children to more effectively implement the educational reforms and to ensure quality education. One of the elements of this support was to organize trainings for the teachers of those schools on contemporary methods of teaching. The trainings were organized in the Village meeting room and apart from the trainings it was also very good opportunity for the teachers of the schools to learn more about the Children’s Village. Needless to say how effective was the impact of the trainings for the teaching processes in general.
Last but not least, we are now working on organization of the summer holidays for our dear children and youngsters and are looking for new campsites to make a change in the camping environment. As usual you will be reported on their holiday experience in detail in our-end-of-year report.
Once again, we would like to express our deepest gratitude for your support and we hope to keep counting on you as sponsors for longer timeframes, and wish you good luck, a lot of happiness and health.
Relevant Countries: Armenia.