‘’Circle of Care” is a social-cultural project aimed at helping a number of vulnerable groups socio-economically, enabling them to achieve socio-economic stability during a difficult period of COVID-19 restrictions and get some support, as well as to develop their skills and specialize.
The target groups were 200 elderly people and families from Artsakh, 50 women who lost their jobs because of COVID-19, as well as 50 young artists; designers, writers, painters, filmmakers, musicians, who had little opportunity to succeed in the profession, and because of COVID-19, they had been completely deprived of the opportunity to do anything in their field. The purpose of the program was not only to provide socio-economic assistance, but also the cultural expression of any assistance, individual attention, as well as the use of the idea of assistance, which applied to each beneficiary in the region. Any beneficiary involved in this program was not only a recipient of assistance, but also a supporter, which increased the perspective of assistance and the duration of the impact.
The entire project was implemented in the Lori Province of the Republic of Armenia.
The project was composed of two phases:
First phase: Food, household items were prepared and distributed to helpless single elderly people and families of the disabled affected by the epidemic from the rural communities of the Lori province and families from Artsakh (Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh), affected by the war, who temporarily live in Vanadzor.
Second phase: Women sewed bed linen, with the sewing machines given to them by us, and knitted warm socks․ Young painters created postcards with their paintings and young writers wrote encouraging texts in the postcards. Everything, created by the artists and women, were distributed to the elderly people who resides in ‘’The House of Elderly People of Vanadzor’’, elderly beneficiaries of ‘’Mission Armenia of Vanadzor’’ and beneficiaries of ‘’The House of Care of Spitak’’.
Small musical performances and movie screenings were organized during the distribution of the packages with the participation of the young musicians and filmmakers.
The project has been supported by the ‘’People in Need’’ Czech NGO.
