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Home » Our work » Success Stories
 | The New Year Magic in Khanoyans Family
Karina Matevosova
Program Coordinator
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Revival of Abandoned Land in Arax Community
Arax community (Armavir region of Armenia) lies just few meters away from the Armenian-Turkish border. The first thing that catches eye here is Mount Ararat’s beautiful panorama.
Hardworking people live here: they do horticulture, run fish farms, grow greens and vegetables in greenhouses, sell the goods they have made, and survive on that money all year around.
Heifer Armenia came to this community in 2006, when 12 needy families received 12 pregnant heifers. Currently, after three years from the project start, the project participants are in process of passing on their pregnant heifers to new families.
Families, who have already received assistance from Heifer, such as families of Tankagin Harutyunyan, Vardges Mkhitaryan, Vardan Markosyan, and others, said many words of gratitude to Heifer and all donors who made this wonder possible.
Now most of the project participants have secured their families with dairy products, and some of them, were even able to create little farms. This, indeed, is something to be proud about.
Seyran Khanoyan, a farmer whose family during Passing-on-the Gift ceremony pulled out Hrachya Kamendatyan’s heifer as the project participants held a draw to determine whose heifers they were going to receive.
Khanoyans are a big family. Three generations live under one roof: Gevorg and Heriqnaz, who are 73 and 71 years old respectively, Seyran, 33, his wife Gohar- 28 and the two toddlers- Liana and Harutyun. They are two and one year old. The Khanoyans main source of income is agricultural farming, which was not always enough for the big family to meet both ends. And the good news of the Heifer POG made them more than happy.
“This is a real Christmas gift!”, - exclaimed Seyran happily. Seyran was excited. He was smiling and didn’t know what to say. He was just happy, knowing in his mind, that his children will have the necessary nutrition and vitamins every day from now on. He was happy because his family was going to become self reliant, and that although the severe cold weather or the enormous heat will affect his harvest, but no more- his income. His family will now have a cow, and this is only the beginning…
The spirit of Christmas and the New Year magic was in the air. Everybody was excited, happy and the atmosphere of friendliness and kindness reigned everywhere. It’s really nice when you see how the people who have once been strangers eventually came together and express willingness to help each other. They were inspired by the idea of Heifer, by the idea of POG and by the fact, that they, who once have been in need too, are now helping someone else…
The project participants were joking, telling different interesting stories and smiling all the time. This was something that made Heifer Armenia experts feel so happy and satisfied.
“Whatever I learnt from the Heifer project, from trainings I will be happy to pass to Khanoyans. Of course, the project participants are used to their animals, but the feeling of helping others honors human beings, I am very glad that other children also will have plenty of fresh milk, yogurt and sour cream on their table”, Hrachya shared his thoughts.
Indeed, Armenian rural people deserve being helped. They deserve all the best in this world. It is due to their hard work and patience, that we enjoy all the goods that Armenian fertile land gives us. It is due to the kindness of Armenian women, that the bread they bake is so tasty… Indeed, nothing can compare to all this, so let God bless all the kind families, be they rural or urban, Armenian, or not… Let them never –ever face any difficulty in their lives, and let the laughter of happy children fill each and every single family…
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