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  • Helping to settle a Syrian family in Armenia

    Thomson Reuters Foundation
    July 30 2014

    Helping to settle a Syrian family in Armenia

    Source: World Food Programme - Wed, 30 Jul 2014 01:22 GMT


    It is seven months since I first met Maral Gahvesjian, waiting
    patiently in a long queue of Syrians of Armenian descent, for their
    WFP food rations at Charents 20, a residential area of the capital,
    Yerevan. Maral, her husband and their three sons, fled their home
    in Aleppo, Syria nearly two years ago – as she put it,
    “leaving the dark days behind."  

    Life hasn't been easy in Yerevan for Maral, 50. The family managed to
    rent cheap accommodation on the outskirts of the city, without heating
    during the cold winter - but she was happy that they were all together
    in Armenia, safe and sound. She told me WFP food assistance was a
    crucial safety net: "The wheat flour, vegetable oil, rice, pulses and
    pasta helped us a lot as my eldest son was the only one with a job in
    the family."

    These basic commodities are provided - thanks to Russia's contribution
    - through WFP's six-month emergency food assistance programme to some
    5,000 people in Armenia. Maral told me the family ration meant that
    the little money they had could go towards other household essentials.
    "Every day," she said, "I bake Syrian bread using the WFP flour. I
    sprinkle it with a few drops of water and draw a cross in the air
    while wishing peace and better days to come for Syria."

    Seven months after my first encounter with Maral, we met again in a
    small bistro, where she is now working, in a residential area of
    Yerevan. She told me she feels more secure and settled - though I
    spotted the Syrian flag displayed in the restaurant. Maral says she is
    thinking of continuing her life in Armenia, a safe haven, rather than
    returning to Aleppo when the war ends, as her family had initially
    planned.

    Behind the scenes: how WFP packaged food for Maral's family - and many others.

    The Armenian government made an unexpected request to WFP - to provide
    individually boxed monthly food rations for ethnic Armenians who had
    fled the war in Syria.

    While it might sound simple, my colleagues were not used to anything
    but bulk distribution. However, Yessai Nikoyan, head of logistics, had
    previously worked for a private company specializing in packing and
    moving - so he coordinated our small team to get things rolling.

    The first step was to design the packaging and find a supplier to
    provide good quality (and tough) corrugated boxes and paper bags. Then
    we needed to hire skilled workers to sort the commodities and pack the
    boxes, checking and weighing the contents. Yessai formed an assembly
    line, assigning one person per commodity, with a team leader at the
    end, to ensure that each of the five commodities were well-packed and
    sealed. Five layers of corrugated cardboard reinforced the boxes to
    withstand handling.

    WFP's Armenia office has completed three packing and distribution
    cycles so far, with new box designs required each time there's a
    change in type of food distributed - just to keep things interesting!

    Russia has been exceptionally flexible in allowing WFP Armenia to
    re-programme some of its contribution for the existing school feeding
    operation to cover the needs of displaced Syrians of Armenian origin
    that have settled in Armenia after fleeing Syria. The six-month
    emergency food assistance reaches some 5,000 displaced Syrian
    Armenians out of a total of 16,000 who have arrived in Armenia since
    the beginning of the Syria crisis.

    http://www.trust.org/item/20140730091735-bma62/

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