The Central Executive Board of the Armenian Relief Society, Inc. announced that $100,000 in pledged donations have been received from its entities around the world to benefit its “Fund for Assistance to Syrian-Armenian Schools”, Asbarez reports. The first installment of these donations will be transferred to the Armenian Relief Cross of Syria in the next few days with the balance to follow later.
ARS, Inc. Chairperson Vicky Marashlian stated, “The ARS, Inc. was the first organization to launch a pan-Armenian fundraising effort to support the Syrian-Armenian community and we established the “Fund for Assistance to Syrian-Armenian Schools”.
The giving of donations collected through this pan-Armenian effort will be supervised by the Armenian Relief Cross of Syria in consultation with ARS, Inc. Central Executive Board and in cooperation with the Armenian Apostolic, Catholic, and Evangelical churches.
“Questions were raised on more than one occasion on why a fund for assistance to schools, when their re-opening is in doubt and when the Armenian community in Syria is in terrible need of socio-economic assistance. On the other hand, by funding the schools, the ARS, Inc. is serving two goals, to facilitate the financial burden to be faced by parents and, at the same time, to support the schools because without that financial support schools will have difficulty in securing their normal operation,” said ARS, Inc. CEB Vice-chairperson Nairy Shahinian.
Considering that a pan-Armenian effort to assist the Syrian-Armenian community was recently launched, bringing together many Armenian religious and secular organizations and institutions, the ARS will continue its effort to assist the Syrian-Armenian community through that effort.
