Date: 14th June 2007, 7pm Location: Theatre, British School Al-Khubairat, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Clarissa Payne, Instrumental Tutor at the British School Al-Khubairat, invites you to a fundraising concert in aid of Zatik Orphanage, Yerevan, Armenia.
The concert aims at raising money to meet the cost of the coming year?s pastoral and academic needs of Zatik Orphanage. See below for more details regarding the orphanage and its work.
The concert promises to be an exciting evening, featuring the talented staff of the British School Instrumental Scheme. The programme will feature chamber music from England, France, Germany, Russia, and Armenia.
We hope you will be able to attend and help make the evening a success; all donations will be going to a truly inspirational cause. Please bring along friends, family, and colleagues who may wish to support the occasion.
The British School is in the Al-Mushrif area of Abu Dhabi, next to Immigration.
For more information do not hesitate to contact Clarissa Payne at her e-mail address.
ADDITIONAL READING
Zatik Orphanage, Arzni Farm, Rainbow House, and Swallow House
The concert?s aim is to raise a year?s living costs for Rainbow House ? 30,000 dhs
Zatik Orphanage, in Yerevan, Armenia, was established in 1993. At that time, due to the fall of the Soviet Union, the subsequent war and unemployment, and a devastating earthquake, there were large numbers of children living on the streets of the city. The orphanage was founded to rescue these children, and to provide care and education.
Today the orphanage houses over 125 children aged six and upward. They attend local schools, and receive dedicated care from the 80 paid and voluntary staff. Many of the children have special educational needs, and several tutors are employed at Zatik to help them. Some of the children aiming to go to university also need extra tuition as in many cases, there have been interruptions in their schooling. These tutors receive no government funding.
In addition to the main orphanage, there are three more recent projects. The children can only remain at the orphanage until they are eighteen, and often they have nowhere to go after that. The Arzni farm, Rainbow House, and Swallow House were set up to try and solve this problem; they receive no government funding.
The Zatik farm is at Arzni, 10 km outside the city. Ten former orphanage children live there, where they are cared for and learn new skills. The children in the main orphanage also benefit from regular visits to the farm, and the animals ensure that nothing at Zatik is wasted by eating all the kitchen leftovers.Fifteen girls aged between eighteen and twenty-two live in Rainbow House, and most of them are studying at Yerevan?s universities. With the guidance of the orphanage staff, the girls make and sell greetings cards, in order to meet some of their living costs. Swallow House is smaller, and houses five girls, two of whom are physically handicapped.
Since the orphanage was founded, the government has provided anything between 10% and 70% of the funding – never 100%. Basic items like clothes and shoes are only funded once a year; anything more comes from donations. Once the children are eighteen, there is no funding for them at all.
To house the Rainbow girls costs 2500dhs a month, and donors are always needed.
The house is always a hive of activity ? girls coming and going from university, carrying out their household duties, making greetings cards, and above all caring for each other under the eye of the house mother. They are serious about their education and their futures, working extra hard to make up for the gaps in their education caused by childhood upheavals. The aim of the concert is to raise a year?s living costs for these girls.
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Where can I purchase the greeting cards on-line that the children of Rainbow House make?