Day 5- Spitak and Vanadzor

Today we drove about an hour north of Yerevan to the town of Spitak to see the work that Habitat has done in the area.  We stopped at a building that was part of a project that fixed windows, front doors, roof and drainage of 12 buildings.

Most of the buildings that were affected by the earthquake in 1988 have been replaced or repaired, but there are still some people living in shipping containers. Here is an example of what a shipping container that has been upgraded looks like from the outside.

We also drove of to an area that was full of small fiberglass houses that had been donated by Italy to help with the housing situation right after the earthquake.

We then drove about an hour south east to visit a couple of social enterprises located in Vanazdor.  The first one was EREO, a non-profit, which stands for Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities.  Their mission is to provide training for people with disabilities to be able to work and create handmade crafts.  EREO was given a grant from the European Union to obtain equipment such as sewing machines and stamping machines for printing on glasses.  The Lory area has the highest percentage of disabled people, in large part because of the of lasting effects of the injuries from the 1988 earthquake.

We then headed to another social enterprise nearby, called the Apricot company, a for-profit.  They also employ people with disabilities to make crafts to be sold in the tourist areas such as Yerevan and Garni.  They have a total of 36 people that they employ, and their crafts range from wooden refrigerator magnets to tea filled wooden boxes.  They also have contracts to produce cloth for buyers in the region.