Every day of our tour revealed new corners of Armenia that I never imagined, but day six was my favorite. As we traveled to the Lori region in the north of Armenia, the fields along the highway burst with red and yellow poppies as low mountains rose in the distance.
September 2019: My first trip to Armenia with the Jinishian Memorial Program (JMP) and I knew almost nothing about their work. On one of our excursions in the Armenian countryside, we stopped to visit a dilapidated building, the concrete crumbling, windows broken, stairs not safe to walk on, the grounds overgrown with weeds. It was difficult at best to see the JMP’s vision for this place. That vision was to establish the Sevan Rehabilitation Center (SRC) assuming all the necessary pieces of the project, including funding, came together. The local team’s enthusiasm was apparent and contagious as they described the plans for this endeavor.
The Jinishian Memorial Program (JMP) was established in 1966 through an endowment from Vartan H. Jinishian and is administered by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to provide economic, social, and spiritual assistance to millions of Armenians in Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and other countries.
In 2020, the price of bread doubled in Syria and the price of imported goods such as rice and sugar increased by 400%. The Jinishian Memorial Program provided coupons to 871 families to make food more affordable.
“If the Jinishian Memorial Program weren’t here with us, what would we do?” a desperate mother in Syria recently asked a JMP staff member.
Friday will be the 40th day of the most recent full-scale military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the landlocked region of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The mountainous and forested land, historically called Artsakh by its majority ethnic Armenian residents, is a territory of 17,000 square miles — about the size of Delaware.
What do you think of when you see the word “Caucasian?” If you are not of Southwest Asian descent (Middle Eastern), it is probably the now-outmoded usage of referring to white people of European descent.
A young family in a remote region of Armenia runs a fruitful greenhouse business, a venture made possible through a microloan and coaching program offered by the Jinishian Memorial Foundation’s Youth Business Project for underserved youth otherwise ineligible for any loan. The project is motivating young people feeling stuck in generational poverty to realize their dream of owning a business to support their families.
A young family in a remote region of Armenia runs a fruitful greenhouse business, a venture made possible through a microloan and coaching program offered by the Jinishian Memorial Foundation’s Youth Business Project for underserved youth otherwise ineligible for any loan. The project is motivating young people feeling stuck in generational poverty to realize their dream of owning a business to support their families.
Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church in New Jersey is a faithful Jinishian Memorial Program donor with Mer Hooys “House of Hope,” which empowers at-risk girls in Armenia to achieve a productive and secure future. Church member Jane Allen has fond memories of her trip to Armenia: “The sky was a brilliant blue and I can still feel the warm air and taste the delicious apricots… Knowing that my church is playing a part of positive and spiritual influence in the lives of those we met through the Jinishian Foundation and Mer Hooys, and seeing their work firsthand, made this day extremely important to my overall experience in Armenia.”
