YMCA Spitak

Activites of the YMCA in Spitak.

Spitak is a small town in northern Armenia with 18’000 inhabitants. The socio-economical situation in Spitak is the same, as whole Armenia after Soviet Union has been destroyed and the socio-economical system crushed: Poorness, high level of unemployment. The situation in Spitak is worse because of the earthquake in 1988. The town was totally destroyed and 4003 people died. Though almost 20 years past, the consequence of the earthquake is still evident in Spitak. 3000 families are still living in containers and temporary buildings.

YMCA Spitak started its activities in 1994 as an Armenian National Movement program. Since 2001 Spitak YMCA is a non-governmental public organization with its own place in the community. YMCA Spitak is a part of National Movement of YMCA’s. There are 7 local YMCA’s in Armenia now.

Today YMCA Spitak is situated in a temporary building (former school). Spitak YMCA is running programs which help solving some needs of community, focused on useful organization of the free time of teenagers and youth, giving them chances for self-realization, getting new knowledge and new skills which will increase their opportunities for employment and help them in their future education. An important part of our activities is also to rehabilitate Christian values that have been lost during the Soviet period. The organization overcomes all the problems being based on its own sources and with the help of the partners, implemented all the programs successfully.

Englishclasses
The goal of language teaching to schoolchildren is to help the children to improve their knowledge they got at school. English Club aims at giving the young people speaking English the chance to communicate in this language and to develop it. For a better result certain English native speakers are involved in the program. English Literature Library is working incessantly all year round and is available for everybody. It includes some classical literature, fiction books, and grammar textbooks. In the English teaching program all together about 25 children in average participated monthly.

Computertraining
Aim of the computer training program is to give to young people a stronger position in the labour market. The program includes general knowledge of the computer, the «Windows» operating system, Microsoft «Office» programs and «Corel draw/Photo-paint», in a 3 months course. The program exists since 2000, when it was the first computer class in Spitak. Until now about 650 young people completed this program. Due to a private donation we were just able to buy brandnew equipment and we hope to improve the program.

Childcare
The childcare program in Spitak YMCA is serving one of the most important needs of Spitak families: the education of pre-school children. In this program parents can bring their children to kindergarten activities that include language teaching, mathematics, painting, music, different games. There are 46 four to six-year-old participants right now. There may be more children involved in this program but the present building conditions don’t allow doing that. On the whole, the present building conditions, furniture, belongings and so on are not sufficient for the program implementation. We hope that the new building will solve the problem and give the opportunity to improve this program in quantity and quality.

Puppettheatre
The main part of this program is to hold performances, periodic presentations in the YMCA Spitak, in different schools of the town and in the orphanage. In October of 2005 YMCA Puppet Show Theatre took part in Armenian Puppet Theatre Festival during which there were presentations in Spitak, Vanadzor, and Yerevan. It received Echmiatsin and Gyumri Puppet Show groups. This was a great experience for the children.
In the frameworks of Refugee Integration Program the YMCA Spitak founded Puppet Show Theatre groups in Nor Khachakap and Ghursali villages inhabited by refugees.
It is especially important to mention the role of the young volunteers in the YMCA Spitak who used to be program participants but now became YMCA volunteers. Right now there are on average 12 participants of the age of 9 to 15.

YMCA-Scouts (Jungschar)
The YMCA-scout program developed out of the existing eco hiking program with the help of some Swiss Scout/Jungschar leaders. Scouting is about activities and skills in, with and for the nature. In Spitak scout leaders of the age 16–20 are meeting once a week to prepare activities, trainings and hikings for different groups of scout participants. During the warm season they organize hikings in the nature in the Spitak region. Besides hiking, they have different inside activities: they improve their scout skills (Morse code, making knots, making maps, first aid, compass usage, etc).
The highlights of the year in scouting program are the scout tent camps in summer. In 2005 the camp was organized with the help of Swiss Scouts, with 45 participants and 39 leaders; in 2006 by Spitak Scout leaders’ team themselves, with 46 participants and 26 leaders. Spitak scouts organized there also a training for the leaders of the other YMCAs. Financial assistance to all camps was given from Zurich YMCA and Armenian National Union (ANU) of YMCAs.

Volunteer Club
The volunteer club has 14 members of the age of 15 to 25 years. This group of the young people plays a big role in the organizations life. They organize and implement programs (i.e. Scouting), they work together with the staff and the program staff, participate in all events and activity implementation.

Ten Sing
This program is temporarly suspended because of lack of leaders.