1 month!

So I've officially been in Gyumri for 1 month (when I first drafted this post), so I think the occasion deserves a post, even though not much is going on. Yesterday Taleen and I had the pleasure of touring the new building of Meghvik, the NGO we teach an english class with that I had mentioned previously. And the most important thing I learned there is that no matter how much money is poured into Armenia from the diaspora, there needs to be some system on this end to make sure the money makes it to the right place. Meghvik Center received a combined $1,000,000 from the Armenian Social Investment Fund, and the All Armenian Fund (the telethon organization) and after walking through the building, talking to the supervisor about the estimate process with the contractors, and having looked at estimates made for a new building for the Healthy Center, I can honestly say I have no idea where about $500,000 of the money has gone.

When I brought this up to the supervisor she explained that the stone they used to build it is very expensive, about 100 dram a stone. So. Let's considering a 1x1x1.5 foot stone bought for 100 dram. If you used only 10% of the money spent on this new building, $100,000 USD, you could buy yourself approximately 350,000 stone blocks (At a little under today's exchange rate). Because 350,000 1x1x1.5 stones is difficult to imagine, instead, picture a stone wall built around a football field, 3 feet thick and 100 feet tall. If you built two of those walls, you'd still have enough to build yourself a handsome garage. For example. But it's definitely not all the supervisor's fault. It probably is her fault that they spent all the money on the building and left none for furnishing or upkeep of any kind, but for two organizations to throw $1,000,000 into a country and hoping it lands where it's supposed to is irresponsible. I'd say almost every volunteer's family has donated through the telethon at some point or even volunteered for it and to hear Meghvik say that no one has ever come from the organization to actually oversee anything is incredibly disappointing. On top of that, the All Armenian Fund's website lists the project as completed, though the building has no electricity, no second floor, and no roof. So not only are they spending diasporan money inappropriately, the aren't making sure it is used correctly, and then they list it as a successful project to encourage more diasporan donations.

I certainly didn't mean for this post to be as angry as it is, but I think something needs to be done about this. Foreign organizations can do all the fundraising they want but unless they have someone on this end to follow through, there's no use.

A more celebratory post to follow.