A charity fundraising has launched in British Crowdfunder recourse recently to support the homeless in Gyumri with apartments. Banks.am talked to the organizer of the initiative, photographer Hayk Barseghyan and journalist Aren Mkrtchyan who had joined the charity initiative.

From photo exhibition to fundraising

1988 earthquake left thousand victims and around 530 000 homeless people.

“When people like me were offered their old apartments back after reconstruction in 2005 by Lincy Foundation, I understood that there are many people in the town that had not been given this opportunity due to some reasons.

In 2013, I decided to go and see what is happening with 4500 (off the record) homeless people that are far from our eyesight”, photographer Hayk Barseghyan says.



This is how Day of Shame project came to life: 25 photos of homeless people living in extreme poverty, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the tragedy. The project was organized the following year as well: 26 photos- discussions, rattle... “but people stayed where they were”.

I learned that it’s possible to organize a fundraising with a British website some weeks ago. I thought that the photos have received an impressive response and went all the way to National Geographic and if we have wish and the ability to use the resources correctly, we could reach a specific goal”, Hayk Barseghyan says.

How the donation can be done

The fundraising launched on January 20. It is estimated that 120 000 British pounds will be collected in 8 weeks, by March 22 which will be used to support 13 families with apartments. In other words, if 120 000 people donate 1 GBP the necessary amount will be collected.



In order to donate, you need to go here, press the Pledge button on the right and donate a specific amount of money. Then, the amount of money gets frozen in the account and the transaction happens only after the entire amount is collected.

The whole money will be returned to the donators, in case the initiative fails.

Since donation on the website is done through PayPal payment system, a private account is opened for non-users (220061854463000 Hayk Barseghyan, Arca: 4083100100242585 Mary Meliksetyan), from which the sum collected in the appointed time period will be transferred to the total amount, and returned to the donators in case the initiative fails.

GBP 5,746 (around AMD 4,1 million) has been donated by 255 people by the time this article was written. According to Hayk, around USD 400-500 has been collected on the private account.



The author of the initiative emphasized that if the initiative was successful a detailed documented report would be presented as how the donated amount was spent.

13 families

The author of the initiative says that the final choice of the families is yet to be made. They expect to provide apartments for 13 families.



According to Hayk, USD 10-12 thousand (GBP 6,8-8,2 thousand) will allow to buy a one-room flat which is enough for a family of 3 people.

The initiative belongs to us all now

Many citizens of various professions joined the initiative, organizing additional charity promotions to collect more money.



However, the charity auction on February 25 will be the largest of such initiatives.

Furthermore, a fundraising is supposed to be held on February 28.

You can read the article in full details here (in Armenian).

Viktoria Andreasyan