Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Armenia charitable organization (established in 2016 in Sweden) Laurence Sharoian and Karen Harutyunyan are in Armenia once again to provide various kinds of assistance to socially disadvantaged families living in the villages of Armenia and Artsakh with the funds raised by the Armenian community of Sweden. They are also joined by member of the organization’s board Jewel Hovhannisian.

The program was launched in Spring 2016. Laurence Sharoian and Karen Harutyunyan have visited the Ararat, Gegharkunik and Shirak Provinces and provided food, clothes and first necessity items, as well as toys and medicine. They have also purchased cows for 24 previously selected families. Sharoian and Harutyunyan had visited Armenia for the same purpose in Winter 2016.

After that, the organization has gained the trust of the Swedish-Armenians and not only them since people have realized that their donations are used to serve the goal.

Encouraging Sharoian’s and Harutyunyan’s pro-national acts, they have donated more money to support more families and carry out comprehensive activities this year.

It is necessary to mention that Swedes and non-Armenian organizations of Sweden also know about their activities. When they learn about the initiative on the Internet, they get inspired and transfer funds as a humanitarian act.

To facilitate their future actions, the organization’s committee organizes events devoted to church and national holidays and raise funds throughout the year. The latest event was held on 8 March, International Women’s Day.

“This year we have decided to show objective support so that the given family can benefit from the assistance for a long time. For instance, one family will receive a sewing machine, while another family will receive a calf. We also purchased a hearing aid for a deaf child after a medical checkup,” Karen Harutyunyan told Hayern Aysor.

This year, the committee also visited the Talish village of the Martakert village to help solve the problems of Artsakh. As Laurence Sharoian noted, the purpose of the visit was to see the current situation in Talish village emptied completely after the Four-Day Artsakh War so that they could decide on the kind of assistance that they had to provide in the future.

“During a meeting with Secretary of the National Security Council of Artsakh Vitaly Balasanyan and head of Talish village Vilen Petrosyan, we understood that it was necessary to support construction in Talish, and the local builders also contacted us. We recorded all the proposals so that we could go to Sweden and try to organize the assistance with the Armenian community,” Laurence Sharoian stated, adding that Armenia and Artsakh are inseparable and that the organization will always be wherever Armenians are in need of help.

At the end, Laurence Sharoian and Karen Harutyunyan informed that the committee had already been recognized as a charitable organization. They have set the goal to carry out their activities in not only Stockholm and Södertälje. They might open branches of the Emergency, Armenia charitable organization within the other Armenian communities of Sweden, as well as within the Armenian communities of Vienna and Denmark.

To provide wide coverage of the completed activities and raise public awareness, the organization has launched its official bilingual (English and Swedish) website at www.akuthjalp.nu. The organization will also post news in Armenian soon.

Gevorg Chichyan