This page contains profiles of some of the students who are participating in the VET Project at the Gyumri State Technical College.
Your support of this project will help students like these receive the education and experience they need in order to be adequately prepared to enter the workforce.
Nina Gasparyan is a third year Economics, Accounting and Audit student at Gyumri State Technical College. She is 18 years old and is the eldest child in a family of six. Nina’s parents are unemployed. Her mother recently suffered a stroke and requires long-lasting medical treatment. The family’s only income is a state social benefit package provided to children. Since Nina is no longer eligible for social assistance due to her age, she does not have any way to pay for her college tuition.
Nina lives 5 kilometers away from the city of Gyumri and walks that distance to attend College. Her path stretches across an abandoned plant, completely deteriorated as a result of the earthquake. The uneven road to their “house” is covered with bumps and pits which heavily complicate the journey. The “house” is the only inhabited space within a 2 km radius. Their current living accommodations were not intended to be used as a dwelling, because it has no water, electricity, or heat; nor an indoor toilet/bathroom.
Karen Gharagyozyan is a first-year student within the Organization and Management of Transportation in Railway Transport department. Apart from attending school, Karen helps his father and his brother in harvest collecting, hay building and other low-paying jobs of a seasonal nature. There are seven people in Karen’s family, which occupy a standard double-room apartment. The apartment is in poor condition with no heating system, regular water supply and problems with electricity. The apartment is quite dark due to the absence of windows in the living room. The walls in the apartment are mostly covered with mold, which emits a heavy odor, and the wooden floors are almost completely rotted with worn out carpets used to partially conceal the holes.
When asked how they lived before, Karen’s father gave a long sigh and said that in the past he worked as a cook and was able to make a decent livelihood. But everything changed after the earthquake, when many public catering enterprises and restaurants were destroyed or closed, and many people had to leave their homeland. It became more difficult to find a job in the public catering sector. His small catering business proved to be non-profitable, so the family decided to give it up.
Artyom Sukiassyan is a third-year student studying Automatics, Telemechanics and Communications in Railway Transport. He is 17 years old. A dramatic turn in his life forced him to undertake the role of head of household. It happened in the beginning of 2000, when his father had to leave his home country for a better life and earn money to sustain his family. Since then, no one has heard anything about him and he was declared as missing. At that time, Artyom decided to study so that he could obtain a profession and earn money to take care of the family. He has a solid belief that he will succeed in everything and will help his family to get out of its desperate situation.
To support his family, Artyom accepted almost every kind of job offered to him, ranging from harvesting vegetables and fruits to working as a construction laborer. But those jobs were only temporary. The only stable income the family has is state social assistance, which is not sufficient for the family’s daily needs. Unfortunately, Artyom’s family still lives in a temporary shelter, which they received after the earthquake. During these twenty years, their house has suffered significant damage causing their living arrangement to be in a condition that leaves much to be desired.
Hasmik Grigoyan is a graduate of Gyumri State Technical College who is unable to obtain her diploma because of her tuition debt. This debt is all that separates Hasmik from being formally qualified and from pursuing her career as a Specialist in Automatics, Telemechanics and Communications in Railway Transport. She lives with her seven family members.
Because of poor health, Hasmik’s father is incapable of work. The family neither receives state assistance nor gets remittances from relatives abroad, thus their financial situation is extremely unstable. “Almost everyone in Gyumri knows what it is to be near to death and every single one has slept outside under the heavy snow at least once”, says Hasmik’s mother. “That is why we believe that sooner or later we will improve our situation, and we’ll do everything to speed up the moment.”
Smbat Aleksanyan is a third-year student within the department of Automatics, Telemechanics and Communication in Railway Transport. Although the family lives in very poor conditions, his parents do everything they can so that their son can receive an education.
Smbat’s family consists of four children, his parents, and his grandparents. One of the brothers is in the army. Their house, which was built after the 1940’s, hardly resembles a real house. It consists of four rooms, one of which has recently crumbled.
Smbat’s father worked as a welder. Now, it has been hard for Smbat’s father to get money for his son’s education, since he has fallen ill. He was the only employed person in the family. The Aleksanyans receive a small amount of social assistance, but it becomes more and more difficult to sustain a seven-member family. However, the family lives with hope, realizing that “when the door is closed there is always a window left open”.
