YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 10, ARMENPRESS. 27 years have passed since the Spitak earthquake but there are still 2700 homeless families. Armenia is one of the countries that implements the program of elimination of disaster consequences slowly.

Photographer Hayk Barseghyan portrays the homeless families of Gyumri, and those photos have been used by National Geographic. On the 27th anniversary of the earthquake Hayk decided to organize charity fundraising through British “crowdfunder” website aimed to mobilize public efforts. “We thought that we have to launch a complex program to solve the problem. The logic of the initiative is the following: If 120.000 Armenian donates 1 pond to the charity fund, 13 Gyumri homeless families living in extremely severe conditions will be granted with new houses”, Aren Mkrtchyan, coordinator and co-author of the program told “Armenpress”.

“This is a multidimensional program that attracts international media representatives. BBC, CNN and Euronews have established contact with us and want to speak about that, recently Al Jazeera live broadcasted the homeless families, and later even expressed desire to prepare a photo series”, Hayk Barseghyan mentioned.

The initiators of the program try to raise the issue mainly outside Armenia through mass media or prominent Armenians. Nearly 8500 pound sterling has been raised in 18-20 days.

One of the conditions of the fundraising is that if 120.000 pounds are not collected, the money will be returned to the donators. The deadline of the fundraising is March 15, but they are negotiating with “crowdfunder” website to prolong the date.

There has been no response from state officials, with the exception of Gyumri Mayor, with whom Barseghyan had a conversation. “Irrespective of our initiative, Gyumri Municipality has planned its own fundraising program, which I liked very much. We have a general goal, to help homeless families. Hence, we try to cooperate to achieve that goal. Many forget that during years the families have grown and now more people live in huts than 27 years ago”, the organizer mentioned.