AWWA / Hanganak NGO Regular Task Force Meeting

On May 20, a regular task force meeting of AWWA / Hanganak NGO took place. AWWA Board Member Margarit Kilajyan chaired the meeting. Prior to the discussion, Ms. Kilajyan drew up an agenda to be discussed during the meeting. The meeting was held in a small group.

As always, the meeting began with a presentation of the political situation in Armenia and Artsakh. Contrary to the turbulent processes in Armenia, the political situation in Artsakh is relatively stable, which is necessary to manage the explosive military situation provoked by the enemy. Undoubtedly, the people of Artsakh are against the anti-Armenian policy of the Armenian authorities and they are united in the protests of the opposition.

The situation with Covid-19 was also briefly discussed. Fortunately, no new cases have been reported in Artsakh over the past week.

Regarding the online training with Hanganak staff, May meeting had been postponed due to Jane Mahakyan’s visit to Armenia in May. Later, referring to the selection of topics for the courses, Nancy Barsamyan noted that there is a need to provide the medical staff with guidelines on a healthy lifestyle, based on the health problems most often encountered by the beneficiaries. According to these guidelines, health care providers should provide relevant knowledge to the beneficiaries. Since these topics can be discussed separately with Nancy Barsamyan, the June meeting should be dedicated to this issue.

Psychological services were discussed again, this time from the perspective of the payment. It was clarified that the payment for the services is made as a salary, which includes 4-5 group sessions per month. In addition, the Empathy Mental Health Center provides individual counseling to those most affected by the war. These services are provided under another program. It was decided to invite Anahit Lalayan, Head of the Empathy Mental Health Center, to the next meeting, to discuss their services and funding sources in detail.

Next, the analysis of April 2022 reports were discussed, in particular the list of drugs was presented. The Hanganak team promised at the last meeting to present in the financial statements the detailed expenditures for food and categorize the expenditures for medicine. Examining the data, the researchers concluded that the main health problems of the beneficiaries were related to diseases of the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems, diabetes and metabolic disorders. Hence the need to organize courses on healthy living arose.

Speaking about the lack of funding for the program, the need for new financial sources was mentioned, in particular, the importance of state sponsorship, which was proposed by State Minister Artak Beglaryan during the last meeting.

The participants of the meeting expressed their satisfaction with the website of the organization. They mentioned that it was very functional in terms of news coverage and representative in its content.

Other current issues were also discussed.