Metzamor is a small town located about twenty kilometres from Yerevan. We went there, with Karine and Lamara of the CRPCF, to visit the kindergarten they support in the context of their child protection activities.
We followed them without really knowing what we were about to see. We drove into an unattractive district, where there stand huge black buildings in bad condition. I was about to take a picture of an old kindergarten with its rusty merry-go-round when the car stopped. I understood we had arrived at the schoolyard…

The director was waiting for us. This lady has been running the school for the last twenty years, and has seen it collapsing over the years. She told us with nostalgia about the heyday of the kindergarten during the Soviet Union times, when the nearby nuclear plant used to finance the school.

This description had nothing to do with the cold and damp building we entered. The children’s work was hanging between pieces of mouldy plaster. Even though the association (CRPCF) had financed the renovation of the roofing, the mayor was responsible for the carrying out of the work and only half was done…The big radiators are not connected to any pipe…In these conditions, it is impossible to welcome children to the school more than six months per year.

It is now March, and parents want the kindergarten to reopen. But the director feels sorry that none of the parents in question offer their help, even those who are jobless.

This visit was not encouraging as there are no immediate solutions on the horizon. We had before us an example of a society let down as a consequence of the fall of the Soviet Union. A system collapsed suddenly with nothing to replace it. Neither the State nor the parents are taking over the former role of the nuclear plant in Metzamor.

We understand that one of the key-roles for associations in Armenia is precisely to compensate for the shortage of public services. The voluntary help that these associations offer the State is an essential investment for the future.

Gabrielle
(Translation: Yolène Dabreteau)