Help put smiles on these children’s faces

You Can Bring Joy to Armenian Village Children

Story

Women for Development NGO has a proven trackrecord (17 years) of helping address the needs of rural communities in the Shirak region, Armenia. Our main goal is to raise local people’s involvement in their decision-making process. In order to meet this goal, we work closely with local municipalities and communities.

Armenia village children are unable to participate in many leisure activities. Few of their parents can afford to take them to the nearest town, or city, to see a puppet show, a park, or a children’s café. Activities like these are an unattainable dream for the majority of village children.

In Armenia, it’s a common practice for children’s heroes to attend celebrations. By purchasing costumes for Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden (Santa’s helper), the Torosgiugh and Lanjik Community Centers (another WFD project) can organize festive Christmas and New Year’s parties for more than 350 local children and teenagers. To extend the joy these heroes bring, we also want to buy costumes for a clown and two favorite cartoon heroes (a total of 5 costumes) to be used on holidays and for cultural events.

Previously the volunteers of the Community Center organized small events, home visits and congratulated the kids. But the costume of Santa Claus was replaced by a “woman’s gown”, and the cartoon heroes only greeted them from TV screens.

Won’t you be one of Santa’s Helpers this year and donate to this project? New Year’s and Christmas are just around the corner. You can help make this year’s celebrations memorable for the children of Torosgiugh and Lanjik villages and know that they, and their families, will enjoy your gift for many years to come.

We do believe in Christmas miracles and are sure that together we will manage to raise the required 1600 USD and make the upcoming Christmas holidays of these kids a fairy tale.

What We Need & What You Get

$800 will pay for 5 complete adult size costumes (for each village). These will be the property of the Torosgiugh and Lanjik Community Centers and available for use by the village residents.

If we are unable to raise the full $1600 in the allotted time, we will purchase the clown and/or cartoon hero costumes first so they will be available for use in 2015.

Amount necessary for the project

250$ – costumes for Santa Claus and Snow Maiden

70$ – costume and accessories for 1 clown

480$ – full costumes for 2 cartoon heroes

Total – 800$

The Impact

Armenia is a small, landlocked country in the South Caucasus. As a former Soviet Republic, it gained independence in 1991. The Shirak region experienced a devastating earthquake several years before, from which it has not fully recovered.

Armenian village life is based on subsistence farming. People raise or grow most of what they need to live. Imagine no local bakery, hair salon, or grocer. Cultural events take place in the village culture house, an unheated space in a building with no kitchen or bathrooms.

By supporting this simple project, children of abovementioned villages will have something to look forward to. Having these costumed characters at a party, helps them forget the difficulties of life and focus on a happy event for a short while.

These costumes will be shared by Torosgiugh and Lanjik with neighboring villages for a small fee. The money collected will be put in a fund for future use by the village for projects supporting the village children. One such project is a playground.

Women for Development, NGO has been working 8 villages for years providing training to the residents. One success story is that after being taught about fundraising, the women of one village, went door-to-door collecting money from each family to buy furniture for their culture house. They collected enough for tables and 1/2 the number of benches they need to hold events for up to 200 people.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you are reading this, you are interested in our project, and we thank you for that. But whether or not you are able to support us financially, we ask one favor of you – please share this project with your friends and family via email or facebook.

The WFD staff is grateful for your help and support.

We do believe in Christmas miracles and are sure that together we will manage to raise the just 1600 USD and make the upcoming Christmas holidays of Lanjik and Torosguygh kids a fairy tale.