Invisible People

A continuing study of homelessness in Yerevan by Hetq Online

Today I made a return visit to a derelict school in the Shengavit district of Yerevan at the request of UNICEF who were assisting Shant TV in the production of a film on birth registration in the Republc of Armenia. At this school there are nearly 100 children from somewhere between 44-50 families who are effectively squatting on the territory of the deserted school because they have no homes. Many of the children have no official documents including birth certificates and therefore do not officially exist. Anyway, after working with RFE-RL and Hetq Online on a few stories about these families, other media outlets also visited to cover their situation.

Really, conditions are appalling with at least six cases of tuberculosis reported to us and no running water or sanitation. One four year old girl who desperately needs an operation on one eye but hasn't sought medical assistance because the doctor has allegedly demanded a few hundred dollars in informal payments now has severe rashes on her face and we don't know what infection or disease has caused this. UNICEF were so alarmed by the situation we found today that they will be requesting that a mobile pediatric team from a Diasporan organization visits immediately. Unfortunately, a few months after Anna Saghabalian and Emil Danielian from RFE/RL, Edik Baghdasarian and myself reported on these families, nothing has changed. Perhaps even, the situation has gotten worse.

As a result, I'm putting together a Macromedia Flash presentation for viewing online in the hope that someone will intervene to assist these families. For technical reasons which I won't go into now, an early version is online which readers of Blogrel have advance notice of. Late tomorrow evening Yerevan time, the completed version with new photographs taken today will be available for viewing online and also downloading and running locally on your own computer. When it is, feel free to copy and pass it along.

The early version of the presentation, Invisible People, can be viewed online at: http://www.hetq.am/eng/photostory/

Posted by Onnik on February 23, 2005 | Email to a friend