A FEW EPISODES FROM STEPANAVAN
Support A1+!While touring along Stepanavan roads one can understand why there aren’t any tourists and holiday-makers there. “The roads haven’t been rebuilt since 1988 earthquake” , a tyre-maker told us. According to him, local authorities have promised to reconstruct the routes but no work was launched yet .
“Do you work?” , we asked Stepanavan residents.
“Would so much people leave if there was any job?” , a man said. He also added 7000 Stepanavan people out of 20000 stayed.
“In Stepanavan there have always been people leaving abroad for work. But this time the problem is of another character” , Armen Bejanyan, head of the Psychological Service Centre of Lori, says.
At his words, “in the colonies the Armenian men legally or illegally start new families” . Their wives and children waiting for them oversensitively perceive that fact. Some of such children appear in the boarding schools.
In 2000 the “Program on Support to Families” was executed in Stepanavan. It aims to “help and convince parents to take their children back from such special institutions” . Mr Bejanyan says thanks to social and psychological support number of boarding schoolchildren reduced by 50% in comparison with 2000.
