[ 2009/03/23 18:04 ] HETQ society
“There are days when we have nothing to eat. If the neighbors give us something, I first give the food to the children and school kids to eat. This way they won’t faint during class. We’re adults and can somehow withstand the hunger pains,” says Chinar Barseghyan, a mother of eight.
There are ten in the Barseghyan household – the parents, Ashot and Chinar, and their eight children, four of which are adolescents. Not of the family members work and survive on a monthly assistance subsidy of 42,000 drams (approximately $114).
The family’s clothes are spread over the beds since they have no furniture or closets. They take turns using the chairs; four chairs for ten people. The table is so small that all of them can’t fit around it at one sitting.
When we visited their house, Mrs. Chinar was boiling potatoes on the stove. She said that there was nothing else in the cupboards and that the kids had to be fed boiled potatoes. The youngest is four year old Victor, who has trouble standing upright. Twelve year old Arousyak was also sickly. The girl said she was hungry and that her tummy ached as a result. Her mother told us she was seriously ill but that she didn’t have the means to take her to the hospital. The girl was quite thin and appeared short for her age.
Her husband, the head of the household, was ashamed when his wife started to tell us about their problems and left the room.
“My husband and I like children a lot, but us having eight kids was a result of our financial situation. We never expected to have so many. It’s true, it’s good to have a lot of children but you have to have the resources to rear hem properly. If I had the money I would have gone to a doctor to abort the pregnancies and wouldn’t have given birth to eight children,” says Chinar Barseghyan, attempting to explain why they brought eight children into the world in such socially inferior conditions.
On various occasions, state officials are keen to beat the drums that raising large families in Armenia is being encouraged. But this family has never experienced such state largesse. Only once or twice a year does the Etchmiadzin municipality assist with a cash hand-out. At one time the family also received assistance parcels from the Red Cross, but they stopped coming three years ago.
According to Chinar, the family owes about 100,000 drams in debt to various stores for purchases of bread and other foodstuffs. During our conversation Karineh Mkrtchyan, one of their female neighbors, entered the house. The Barseghyans are in debt to her as well.
“I work at the bread factory and they give me bread in lieu of a salary. I turn around and sell the bread. Chinar has been taking bread from me for the last three months but hasn’t paid me. Taking their plight into account I haven’t pressed them to pay up but I have a family and kids too. Just how long can I wait? But I keep giving them bread, all the same. If I stopped the children would collapse from hunger,” said Karineh Mkrtchyan.
Three of the Barseghyan children are of school age but we wondered if they actually attended classes. The kids have no clothes and the family can’t pay for books or notepads.
Neighbors relate that the children go to the garbage dump every day in the hope of finding glass containers or scraps of metal. They take the few bottles they find to the shops for bread money.
One of their neighbors, Anahit Hayrapetyan, said, “Living like this in the 21st century is inhuman. Is that what you’d call living? And what about the kids? It’s a pity.”
It’s true. Not only are the Barseghyans far removed from the comforts of the 21st century but are deprived of even the most basic of amenities. The house in which they live is half complete. The walls aren’t plastered and the floor is cold concrete. When we visited, the house was lost in a cloud of smoke since they burn anything they can get their hands on – plastic odds and ends, pieces of automobile tires, rubber; you name it. The acrid smoke had settled on the kids leaving them covered from head to toe in soot. They didn’t even have a bar of soap on hand to wash with. The house only had three small rooms, two of which are used as bedrooms.
“My children are already grown. But we don’t have the means and are forced to sleep two to three to a bed. Even the teenagers, brother and sister, sleep in the same bed. The other day I pulled five scorpions from out of the clothes and killed them. My little boy was bitten twice and miraculously managed to survive,” recounts Chinar.
Given that they have no communal facilities to speak of, Mrs. Chinar says that they hardly bathe during the winter since, “We bathe outside, but during the winter it’s too cold for that.”
Grisha Balasanyan
_______________________________________
Lets Help This Family , we are collecting clothes, food, things for residential use...
Join us!! come to visit this family
Let's switch on the light together!!!
093 640 340 Mariam
“There are days when we have nothing to eat. If the neighbors give us something, I first give the food to the children and school kids to eat. This way they won’t faint during class. We’re adults and can somehow withstand the hunger pains,” says Chinar Barseghyan, a mother of eight.
There are ten in the Barseghyan household – the parents, Ashot and Chinar, and their eight children, four of which are adolescents. Not of the family members work and survive on a monthly assistance subsidy of 42,000 drams (approximately $114).
The family’s clothes are spread over the beds since they have no furniture or closets. They take turns using the chairs; four chairs for ten people. The table is so small that all of them can’t fit around it at one sitting.
When we visited their house, Mrs. Chinar was boiling potatoes on the stove. She said that there was nothing else in the cupboards and that the kids had to be fed boiled potatoes. The youngest is four year old Victor, who has trouble standing upright. Twelve year old Arousyak was also sickly. The girl said she was hungry and that her tummy ached as a result. Her mother told us she was seriously ill but that she didn’t have the means to take her to the hospital. The girl was quite thin and appeared short for her age.
Her husband, the head of the household, was ashamed when his wife started to tell us about their problems and left the room.
“My husband and I like children a lot, but us having eight kids was a result of our financial situation. We never expected to have so many. It’s true, it’s good to have a lot of children but you have to have the resources to rear hem properly. If I had the money I would have gone to a doctor to abort the pregnancies and wouldn’t have given birth to eight children,” says Chinar Barseghyan, attempting to explain why they brought eight children into the world in such socially inferior conditions.
On various occasions, state officials are keen to beat the drums that raising large families in Armenia is being encouraged. But this family has never experienced such state largesse. Only once or twice a year does the Etchmiadzin municipality assist with a cash hand-out. At one time the family also received assistance parcels from the Red Cross, but they stopped coming three years ago.
According to Chinar, the family owes about 100,000 drams in debt to various stores for purchases of bread and other foodstuffs. During our conversation Karineh Mkrtchyan, one of their female neighbors, entered the house. The Barseghyans are in debt to her as well.
“I work at the bread factory and they give me bread in lieu of a salary. I turn around and sell the bread. Chinar has been taking bread from me for the last three months but hasn’t paid me. Taking their plight into account I haven’t pressed them to pay up but I have a family and kids too. Just how long can I wait? But I keep giving them bread, all the same. If I stopped the children would collapse from hunger,” said Karineh Mkrtchyan.
Three of the Barseghyan children are of school age but we wondered if they actually attended classes. The kids have no clothes and the family can’t pay for books or notepads.
Neighbors relate that the children go to the garbage dump every day in the hope of finding glass containers or scraps of metal. They take the few bottles they find to the shops for bread money.
One of their neighbors, Anahit Hayrapetyan, said, “Living like this in the 21st century is inhuman. Is that what you’d call living? And what about the kids? It’s a pity.”
It’s true. Not only are the Barseghyans far removed from the comforts of the 21st century but are deprived of even the most basic of amenities. The house in which they live is half complete. The walls aren’t plastered and the floor is cold concrete. When we visited, the house was lost in a cloud of smoke since they burn anything they can get their hands on – plastic odds and ends, pieces of automobile tires, rubber; you name it. The acrid smoke had settled on the kids leaving them covered from head to toe in soot. They didn’t even have a bar of soap on hand to wash with. The house only had three small rooms, two of which are used as bedrooms.
“My children are already grown. But we don’t have the means and are forced to sleep two to three to a bed. Even the teenagers, brother and sister, sleep in the same bed. The other day I pulled five scorpions from out of the clothes and killed them. My little boy was bitten twice and miraculously managed to survive,” recounts Chinar.
Given that they have no communal facilities to speak of, Mrs. Chinar says that they hardly bathe during the winter since, “We bathe outside, but during the winter it’s too cold for that.”
Grisha Balasanyan
_______________________________________
Lets Help This Family , we are collecting clothes, food, things for residential use...
Join us!! come to visit this family
Let's switch on the light together!!!
093 640 340 Mariam
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