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PRESS RELEASE
The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc.
P.O. Box 291411
Los Angeles, California 90027
Vahe Kazandjian, President
Hagop Mkrdchian, Treasurer
Markar Melkonian, Secretary
Angela Barseghian, Member, Board of Directors
The past two years have been busy ones for the Monte Melkonian Fund
and itssister organization in Armenian, the Monte Melkonian Benevolent
Organization (the MMBO), as our ongoing projects have expanded and
we've taken up new projects. We're proud of these projects, and we
would like to tell you about them.
In past letters we have described the Fund's work on the Smbat
Tatosian Adolescent and Youth Center in the village of Karegah. You
might recall that Karegah, with its more that 250 inhabitants, is one
ofthe largest rural communities in the strategically vital region of
Kashatagh, or Lachin. * Now in its fifth year of operation, the
Tatosian Center functions thanks to the ongoing work of the MMBO and
the generous financial support of two organizations, `Aznavour pour
Arménie' and the `Fondation Diran et Charles Philippossian' of
Switzerland.
The Tatosian Center is home to arts and sports groups, clubs and
classes for theater, dance, photography, ceramics, painting,
computers, and piano, as well as soccer and karate teams. Young
people participate in these activities voluntarily and free of charge.
The Center organizes lectures,hosts festivities and excursions, and
organizes community and environmentalwork by young people of the
village. It has brought a new quality into the lives of the young
people of the village, who consider it their second home.
Encouraged by the results of the Tatosian Center in Karegah, the
Fund, with the financial support of `Aznavour pour Arménie',
established a similar youth center in the village of Khachik in
Armenia. Because Khachik borders Nakhijevan, it was a hot spot during
the war years. In recent years, however, this strategically located
village has lost one-sixth of its population due to emigration caused
by plummeting standards of living. Today Khachik counts some 250
houses and less than a thousand inhabitants. As elsewhere, the young
make up most of those who have emigrated. Fortunately, the youth
center began functioning in late 2006 and it has already revitalized
the youth of Khachik and brought hope to the village.
At about the same time, the Fund established a third youth centerin
Azatavan, a border village in the Ararat region of Armenia. This
center, too, has brought new vigor to the daily lives of young people
who otherwise would have felt isolated and abandoned.
The Fund has also continued to support and oversee the very
successful Cow Pass-On Program, which benefits local farmers and their
families in Karegah. Since late 2005, we have purchased eleven more
cows (eitherpregnant or with a calf) and have provided them to nine
families under the`pass-on' system. Under this system, each family
maintains the cow and benefits from its milk for two years, after
which time they retain the first already-mature calf, and return the
original cow plus thesecond (and sometimes a third) calf to the MMBO,
which in turn passes them on to another family under the same terms.
Over the course of several years, this simple, self-sustaining and
expanding pass-on system has provided indispensable nutrition to
families in Karegah.
The Fund has brought drinking water to the inhabitants of the
Maghavouz and Arakel communities in the Martakert and Hadrout regions
respectively. From 1992 to 1994, the village of Maghavouz witnessed
fierce fighting, changing hands several times between Armenian and
Azerbaijani forces. Since the return of its inhabitants in 1994, most
of the village haslacked running water because of damage to the
infrastructure during the war. For more than twelve years, most of
the villagers had to carry water, sometimes by hand, from a source at
one of the entrances of the village. The village of Arakel in the
Hadrut region has also faced a serious water shortage problem for
years.
After becoming aware of these problems, the MMBO took charge. Thanks
again to the financial assistance of `Aznavour pour Arménie',as well
as the active participation of the community, the reparation work at
Maghavouz was completed in short order, and by late August 2007 more
than 90% of the work at Arakel had been completed. Now for the first
time in years, the inhabitants of these villages have running water.
Once again weare reminded how much can be achieved with limited
resources, but with an active community and cooperation among charity
organizations.
The Fund has assisted and supervised the renovation of the regional
hospital of Berdzor, the sole medical center for the northern and
centralparts of the Kashatagh region. For more than a decade, the
hospital building had not undergone any renovation or repairs. This
was a situation that threatened to create hygiene problems in that
medical center. Thanks yet again to financial support from `Aznavour
pour Arménie', the MMBO was able to undertake and supervise the
extensive interiorrenovation work.
The Monte Melkonian Fund and the MMBO have continued to assist
destitute students and schools in Armenia. In 2007, among other
activities, we have provided assistance to needy blind students,
including digital recorders and personal computers with installed
speech synthesis software.
Thanks to a generous special donation of $8000 from our
long-timesupporter, Mr. Mark Nahabedian, we were able to provide
reconstruction and follow-up support to the Metsamor Museum near
Yerevan. This was part of a special project that the Fund has
undertaken since 2005, to help safeguard Armenia's irreplaceable
neolithic monuments. As a result ofdramatic cutbacks of funding to
the museum starting in the early 1990s, thebuilding fell into serious
disrepair, the roof was leaking in several places, and the plumbing
and electrical systems were decrepit. This state of disrepair posed
an imminent danger to museum artifacts-some of them dating back to
5000 BC.
Since 2005 the Fund has installed a high quality roof, provided
much-neededrepairs to the museum building and grounds, conducted
extensive repairs to the water system, and replaced the substandard
electrical system. Our next step will be installation of an
air-conditioning and heating system in the museum building.
All of the donations that benefited this special project were so
designatedby the donors themselves. We invite all of our friends to
visit the museum in the town of Medzamor on their next journey to
Armenia. The museum is located fifteen kilometers west of Echmiadzin,
in the village of Taronik in the Armavir region.
In addition, MMBO has extended microcredit to several especially
needy farming families at 0% interest. With additional donations, we
could expand this promising pilot project.
The Monte Melkonian Fund has continued to provide direct aid to
families and individuals displaced by war and poverty. A telethon in
the Los Angeles area organized by local television talk show hostess
Noone Avetisyan and sponsored by the Fund, collected donations
sufficient to cover medical treatment for Mr. Hrant Tumasyan, a
seriously injured war veteran.
Assistance to the Public Awareness Campaign concerning the Situation
in Kashatagh. You might be aware that the inhabitants of the
Kashatagh region have led very difficult lives in recent years, due in
large partto corrupt governance and the lack of a clear developmental
policy for the region. As a result, the population of this
strategically important region has fallen sharply. In the past year,
the Fund has provided direct logistical help to the Association of
Investigative Journalists of Armeniaand its president Edik
Baghdasarian, and established most of the necessary contacts during
their investigation. The investigative journalists lead a public
awareness campaign, highlighting the region's problems. This campaign
eventually resulted in the dismissal of the corrupt regional governor.
Finally, MMBO has continued to reach out to the larger public,
sharing Monte Melkonian's moral legacy and the example of his life.
The MMBO has done this both directly, through its own archival efforts
and outreach activities, and by assisting interested journalists and
scholars.
In November 2007, the Republic of Armenia will officially commemorate
the fiftienth anniversary of Monte's birth. We would like to honor
him by raising funds for the sort of work that was dear to Monte's
The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc. and our sister organization the MMBO
work tochange the reality on the ground for some of the neediest of
the needy in some of the most isolated and strategically vulnerable
areas of Armenia. The Fund works with a bare minimum of
administrative overhead, and volunteers and member of the communities
themselves accomplish much of its work. For more details about the
Fund and its work, visit: www.melkonian.org, and click on the link
entitled `Report on Projects and Activities of the Monte Melkonian
Benevolent Organization from September 2005 through August 2007.'
The more financial assistance the Monte Melkonian Fund receives, the
more we can accomplish. The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc. is a California
502(c)(3) tax-deductible charity, Tax I.D. Number 95-4512217.
* Kashatagh is situated between the southeastern territory of the
Republic of Armenia and the territory forming the former `Autonomous
Region of Nagorno Karabagh.'
The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc.
P.O. Box 291411
Los Angeles, California 90027
Vahe Kazandjian, President
Hagop Mkrdchian, Treasurer
Markar Melkonian, Secretary
Angela Barseghian, Member, Board of Directors
The past two years have been busy ones for the Monte Melkonian Fund
and itssister organization in Armenian, the Monte Melkonian Benevolent
Organization (the MMBO), as our ongoing projects have expanded and
we've taken up new projects. We're proud of these projects, and we
would like to tell you about them.
In past letters we have described the Fund's work on the Smbat
Tatosian Adolescent and Youth Center in the village of Karegah. You
might recall that Karegah, with its more that 250 inhabitants, is one
ofthe largest rural communities in the strategically vital region of
Kashatagh, or Lachin. * Now in its fifth year of operation, the
Tatosian Center functions thanks to the ongoing work of the MMBO and
the generous financial support of two organizations, `Aznavour pour
Arménie' and the `Fondation Diran et Charles Philippossian' of
Switzerland.
The Tatosian Center is home to arts and sports groups, clubs and
classes for theater, dance, photography, ceramics, painting,
computers, and piano, as well as soccer and karate teams. Young
people participate in these activities voluntarily and free of charge.
The Center organizes lectures,hosts festivities and excursions, and
organizes community and environmentalwork by young people of the
village. It has brought a new quality into the lives of the young
people of the village, who consider it their second home.
Encouraged by the results of the Tatosian Center in Karegah, the
Fund, with the financial support of `Aznavour pour Arménie',
established a similar youth center in the village of Khachik in
Armenia. Because Khachik borders Nakhijevan, it was a hot spot during
the war years. In recent years, however, this strategically located
village has lost one-sixth of its population due to emigration caused
by plummeting standards of living. Today Khachik counts some 250
houses and less than a thousand inhabitants. As elsewhere, the young
make up most of those who have emigrated. Fortunately, the youth
center began functioning in late 2006 and it has already revitalized
the youth of Khachik and brought hope to the village.
At about the same time, the Fund established a third youth centerin
Azatavan, a border village in the Ararat region of Armenia. This
center, too, has brought new vigor to the daily lives of young people
who otherwise would have felt isolated and abandoned.
The Fund has also continued to support and oversee the very
successful Cow Pass-On Program, which benefits local farmers and their
families in Karegah. Since late 2005, we have purchased eleven more
cows (eitherpregnant or with a calf) and have provided them to nine
families under the`pass-on' system. Under this system, each family
maintains the cow and benefits from its milk for two years, after
which time they retain the first already-mature calf, and return the
original cow plus thesecond (and sometimes a third) calf to the MMBO,
which in turn passes them on to another family under the same terms.
Over the course of several years, this simple, self-sustaining and
expanding pass-on system has provided indispensable nutrition to
families in Karegah.
The Fund has brought drinking water to the inhabitants of the
Maghavouz and Arakel communities in the Martakert and Hadrout regions
respectively. From 1992 to 1994, the village of Maghavouz witnessed
fierce fighting, changing hands several times between Armenian and
Azerbaijani forces. Since the return of its inhabitants in 1994, most
of the village haslacked running water because of damage to the
infrastructure during the war. For more than twelve years, most of
the villagers had to carry water, sometimes by hand, from a source at
one of the entrances of the village. The village of Arakel in the
Hadrut region has also faced a serious water shortage problem for
years.
After becoming aware of these problems, the MMBO took charge. Thanks
again to the financial assistance of `Aznavour pour Arménie',as well
as the active participation of the community, the reparation work at
Maghavouz was completed in short order, and by late August 2007 more
than 90% of the work at Arakel had been completed. Now for the first
time in years, the inhabitants of these villages have running water.
Once again weare reminded how much can be achieved with limited
resources, but with an active community and cooperation among charity
organizations.
The Fund has assisted and supervised the renovation of the regional
hospital of Berdzor, the sole medical center for the northern and
centralparts of the Kashatagh region. For more than a decade, the
hospital building had not undergone any renovation or repairs. This
was a situation that threatened to create hygiene problems in that
medical center. Thanks yet again to financial support from `Aznavour
pour Arménie', the MMBO was able to undertake and supervise the
extensive interiorrenovation work.
The Monte Melkonian Fund and the MMBO have continued to assist
destitute students and schools in Armenia. In 2007, among other
activities, we have provided assistance to needy blind students,
including digital recorders and personal computers with installed
speech synthesis software.
Thanks to a generous special donation of $8000 from our
long-timesupporter, Mr. Mark Nahabedian, we were able to provide
reconstruction and follow-up support to the Metsamor Museum near
Yerevan. This was part of a special project that the Fund has
undertaken since 2005, to help safeguard Armenia's irreplaceable
neolithic monuments. As a result ofdramatic cutbacks of funding to
the museum starting in the early 1990s, thebuilding fell into serious
disrepair, the roof was leaking in several places, and the plumbing
and electrical systems were decrepit. This state of disrepair posed
an imminent danger to museum artifacts-some of them dating back to
5000 BC.
Since 2005 the Fund has installed a high quality roof, provided
much-neededrepairs to the museum building and grounds, conducted
extensive repairs to the water system, and replaced the substandard
electrical system. Our next step will be installation of an
air-conditioning and heating system in the museum building.
All of the donations that benefited this special project were so
designatedby the donors themselves. We invite all of our friends to
visit the museum in the town of Medzamor on their next journey to
Armenia. The museum is located fifteen kilometers west of Echmiadzin,
in the village of Taronik in the Armavir region.
In addition, MMBO has extended microcredit to several especially
needy farming families at 0% interest. With additional donations, we
could expand this promising pilot project.
The Monte Melkonian Fund has continued to provide direct aid to
families and individuals displaced by war and poverty. A telethon in
the Los Angeles area organized by local television talk show hostess
Noone Avetisyan and sponsored by the Fund, collected donations
sufficient to cover medical treatment for Mr. Hrant Tumasyan, a
seriously injured war veteran.
Assistance to the Public Awareness Campaign concerning the Situation
in Kashatagh. You might be aware that the inhabitants of the
Kashatagh region have led very difficult lives in recent years, due in
large partto corrupt governance and the lack of a clear developmental
policy for the region. As a result, the population of this
strategically important region has fallen sharply. In the past year,
the Fund has provided direct logistical help to the Association of
Investigative Journalists of Armeniaand its president Edik
Baghdasarian, and established most of the necessary contacts during
their investigation. The investigative journalists lead a public
awareness campaign, highlighting the region's problems. This campaign
eventually resulted in the dismissal of the corrupt regional governor.
Finally, MMBO has continued to reach out to the larger public,
sharing Monte Melkonian's moral legacy and the example of his life.
The MMBO has done this both directly, through its own archival efforts
and outreach activities, and by assisting interested journalists and
scholars.
In November 2007, the Republic of Armenia will officially commemorate
the fiftienth anniversary of Monte's birth. We would like to honor
him by raising funds for the sort of work that was dear to Monte's
The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc. and our sister organization the MMBO
work tochange the reality on the ground for some of the neediest of
the needy in some of the most isolated and strategically vulnerable
areas of Armenia. The Fund works with a bare minimum of
administrative overhead, and volunteers and member of the communities
themselves accomplish much of its work. For more details about the
Fund and its work, visit: www.melkonian.org, and click on the link
entitled `Report on Projects and Activities of the Monte Melkonian
Benevolent Organization from September 2005 through August 2007.'
The more financial assistance the Monte Melkonian Fund receives, the
more we can accomplish. The Monte Melkonian Fund, Inc. is a California
502(c)(3) tax-deductible charity, Tax I.D. Number 95-4512217.
* Kashatagh is situated between the southeastern territory of the
Republic of Armenia and the territory forming the former `Autonomous
Region of Nagorno Karabagh.'