Construction of a Pediatric Rehabilitation Center in ALAVERDI, Lori Area

Humanitarian project for 2009-2010

The Center will offer to children with physical deficiencies and/or learning difficulties the opportunity to grow and to develop to their full potential. It will also help entire families to remain together in spite of the enormous disadvantages they are faced with every day.

Alaverdi is a small mining town in the canyon of Debed, situated in the Northern region of Armenia Lori, practically on the border with Georgia. Including the surrounding villages, it has 38,000 inhabitants, of which 6,500 are children.

In the time of the Soviet Union, the town was an important production center of non-ferrous metals. The ACP copper factory, smoke of which wraps the city, contributed to the increase in the number of congenital anomalies and child morbidity. The children of Alaverdi pay even today the heavy price for pollution.

According to the studies undertaken by UNICEF together with the Armenian Ministry of Health, more than 13% of the infantile population in this area suffer from various development problems and have special needs. Moreover, these children have no possibility of attending school and are entirely isolated from society.

There are no facilities built for children with special needs and opportunities for placement in the capital or another city nearby are scarce; the children are therefore constrained to remain at home, without any social contact.

The Alaverdi Rehabilitation Center: why this project?

Goals of the project:

 

 To offer care and handicap-fit facilities to children with disabilities leaving in the remote areas of Armenia.

•  To take care of the disabled children in Alaverdi and the neighboring villages and to look after children suffering from malformations caused by pollution from the copper factory.
•  To carry out an investigation on the real number of handicapped children in the area (recorded and not recorded).
•  To train local medical teams and families, in partnership with UNICEF.

 Monaco-Armenia Children's Fund
1, avenue Henri Dunant - Palais de la Scala - 98000 MC Monaco
Tel. Fax: +377 97 98 48 95 - Cell. +33 680 86 34 50 - e-mail: monaco.armenia@monaco.mc