AXSChat Podcast with Sarah Stites, Development Officer for Caritas Aregak Foundation

 Sarah Stites is the Development Officer for Caritas Aregak Foundation, an organization devoted to supporting young people with disabilities in Gyumri, Armenia. Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, Sarah is passionate about communication, human dignity, cultural exchange and empathy. 

  Their primary fundraising needs right now are for three projects, in order of highest - lowest need (in other words, we have more potential fundraising possibilities for projects 2 and 3 than we do for 1): 

1. Renovation of our bakery's cellar

2. Special activities and therapies for children with autism

3. Rehabilitative care for wounded soldiers  

They have written proposals for all three projects, but currently no special "fundraiser" sites.They have a general donation button on our website. We also have ongoing fundraisers on my DonorSee page here. 

Transcript

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Neil Milliken: hello, and welcome to axschat we're delighted today to be joined by Sarah Stites Sarah is in Armenia and is.

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Neil Milliken: doing work for characters arrogant Foundation, which is working with children with special educational needs.

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Neil Milliken: delighted to have you with us it's great to be hearing about people's stories from other parts of the world and know what's going on to include.

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Neil Milliken: Disabled people and really very interested to hear about your story and what you're doing so, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and obviously talking to you, you don't sound terribly Eastern European so the backstory as well, please.

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Sarah Stites: Sure, of course, thank you so much for having me i'm also delighted to be here so yeah we'll start with my background, I am a quarter Armenian so I have a little bit of it in my blood, but I did recently become a dual citizen so i'm Armenian as well as American citizen.

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Sarah Stites: My grandfather was a full Armenian but I never met him he died long before I was born and so that really inspired me to want to explore my roots and.

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Sarah Stites: So I found a program called birthright Armenia and the goal of this program was to bring young people whose ancestors were from Armenia, but had fled during the genocide in.

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Sarah Stites: and bring them back to their homeland, and so I did this program in 2018 and part of the program included volunteering and I was placed at the organization, where I now work I loved it so much that I decided to stay so that's a little bit about my background.

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Neil Milliken: that's fantastic so tell us a bit more about the about the foundation that you know work for.

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Sarah Stites: So contests are I got foundation runs two different organizations, the first is called the Center and we are a supports and development Center for kids with special needs.

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Sarah Stites: you read Armenia and give me just a little bit about Community is the second biggest city in Armenia.

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Sarah Stites: and probably the most notable thing to be aware of is that you really experienced a huge earthquake in 1988.

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Sarah Stites: And prior to that earthquake, it was the cultural hub of Armenia, it was a successful city, there are many factories, but nearly all of the factories collapse.

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Sarah Stites: And the population was decimated and the city never really returned to what it was like before, and so the poverty rates are very high, here, a population of people with disabilities is higher, because many people, of course, sustained injuries after the earthquake.

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Sarah Stites: The economy is very bad as well, so really my organization meets a big need.

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Sarah Stites: And the way we think about it is that you know, we want to support families who have special needs kids and make their lives easier.

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Sarah Stites: Help them on that journey, because unfortunately many families with special needs kids also do give up those children orphanages, because life is so hard in Armenia.

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Okay.

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Sarah Stites: So.

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Sarah Stites: That is a little bit about our.

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Sarah Stites: Our Center I can talk now about our bakery room and we can get to that later, however, you guys want to approach it.

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So.

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Neil Milliken: Of course.

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Neil Milliken: i'm still sort of digesting the the the description that you just gave about people finding life so tough and to give away their their children and it.

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Neil Milliken: Obviously, is heart wrenching because when when people are forced to do that it's obviously not because they didn't love their children so.

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Neil Milliken: describe a little bit about the sort of economic situation in Armenia, because people may not know obviously it's a former Soviet republic and is now independent and.

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Neil Milliken: But but yeah it would be, it would be good for people to sort of understand a bit of the context.

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Neil Milliken: as to why it's such a struggle, etc, aside from the you know the the natural disruption has been wrought as well.

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Sarah Stites: Of course yeah so, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union happens shortly after this earthquake and then there was also a war in Armenia around that time to read.

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Sarah Stites: everything happened at once and humor he got the brunt of it and so right now work is just the last is the biggest problem in the city, so one really eye opening facts that i'll share with you is that.

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Sarah Stites: I couldn't give you the exact percentage, but at least half of the adult male population, if not more works in Russia and sends home remittances.

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Sarah Stites: To the families.

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Sarah Stites: Okay, there are many cases they will stay in Russia and not send back money to the families.

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Sarah Stites: So that is one of the biggest issues that the families are broken up because of this, because there's no work in the city.

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Sarah Stites: And then also special needs families, you know face higher rates of family in general, and that is exacerbated here.

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Sarah Stites: So another factor or sad factor to mention, too, is that there is still very high stigma against people with disabilities in Armenia, and we of course are working to change that there are many great organizations working to change that.

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Sarah Stites: I couldn't tell you exactly why that is but one of my theories, is that because of the Culture here, children are expected to help.

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Sarah Stites: With family finances, you know to to to eventually work and contribute to supporting the family and eventually to support elderly parents and so a child, with disabilities can is considered non viable.

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Sarah Stites: And a shame on the family and i've heard of cases where children were sent to orphanages, because the parents were afraid that.

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Sarah Stites: You know, they would be looked down upon either or that other families wouldn't, for example, if another family had a daughter.

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Sarah Stites: who wanted to marry into this family, maybe they wouldn't because they think that disability runs in the genetics, of the family there, there are a lot of these different kind of theories and thoughts.

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Sarah Stites: surrounding this and again we're I think education is key and that's part of also what we do i'm trying to change perspectives on this.

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Antonio Santos: So, can you describe the the type of support that families of these students might expect in Armenia, so you work for an organization, but what is there other organizations work in the field, what is the relation with with government at the education.

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Antonio Santos: level that social services, can you give us a picture of that.

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Sarah Stites: yeah so inclusive education started about 20 years ago.

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Sarah Stites: But one of the big problems, was that I was really inclusive in name only, and there was a you know, there was a push to change things, but not a proper foundation laid for doing so.

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Sarah Stites: So teachers didn't receive the rights education and preparation for it children with disabilities were just mixed into classrooms.

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Sarah Stites: aren't the appropriate support structures so many families just chose not to send their kids to those schools, because it wasn't working so gradually that is changing.

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Sarah Stites: there's also support, I think, right now, every family with a child, a registered child with disabilities receives about 50 USD a month.

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Sarah Stites: salaries are very low in Armenia, I am, but I can tell you that that doesn't go very far to help a family, because of course.

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Sarah Stites: The infrastructure in this city, as well as inaccessible there aren't accessible transportation options, most of the sidewalks don't have ramps a lot of the roads are gravel there aren't elevators and in apartment buildings and most everyone lives in an apartment so.

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Sarah Stites: There are just a lot of obstacles facing these families, sometimes going along with the stigma piece that I mentioned earlier, a family may not want to take their child to receive medical services which the government will help subsidize.

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Sarah Stites: Because again they're afraid of the stigma and the shame, they don't want to acknowledge they're in denial that their child has special needs.

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Sarah Stites: So that's a little bit an answer to your question.

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Sarah Stites: I would say what makes us different you know the services we provide, of course, are completely free and I would also say that the most beautiful thing about our Center really.

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Sarah Stites: is well twofold the love that's in our Center and also the way that it is laid out, we were very blessed to receive donations from the Austrians.

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Sarah Stites: several different organizations and personal donors gave money to create our Center I wish I could give you a tour now, and I can actually if you guys want I can take the computer and show you.

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Sarah Stites: But it did not.

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Antonio Santos: know we will show we will share the link in when we.

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Antonio Santos: Do during the period that we're going to promote our presence on access chat because you have that view on your site.

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Sarah Stites: Okay, yes.

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Sarah Stites: That this this word is all Alpine word, so the whole Center basically all the materials were transported from Austria, and so it is intentionally built to provide a sense of.

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Sarah Stites: Peace and calm and nature and space and in Henry what a juxtaposition because really when you come down the street toward our Center you have these post Soviet concrete apartment buildings.

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Sarah Stites: And you know gravelly roads and it's just a kind of depressing view and you turn them on and there's our building would last solar panels and families routinely will tell me yeah the first time I stepped into your building I just felt it was different I felt like I let all my stress.

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Sarah Stites: and

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Sarah Stites: So I getting carried away, but we, you know the services that we we provide include a full range of therapies physical speech ergo music art psychological therapy.

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Sarah Stites: And they're both individual groups sorry their individual therapy sessions, as well as group therapy sessions and activities and.

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Sarah Stites: yeah i'll stop you if you guys have.

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Sarah Stites: to that.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Well, I am I, I was blessed to interview you on my other show human potential at work and I just was blown away by just multiple things.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): That what the people are having a walk breaks my heart so bad, and of course coven is happening so I want you to address that a little bit, but I also i'm so.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): And I want you to tell us the story about the bakery because there was some surprises about the bakery you're worried, for example, that.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): You know if the bakery is being made for by people with disabilities will it be accepted and and that part of the story, I thought was really beautiful but I also.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): I look at young amazing people like you, Sarah and you give me hope for the world, because you left the US that we, I mean things are messy in the US, right now, but.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Things are very you know comparatively it's I just think it says so much about your generation as we find leaders leaders like you, that are like.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Well, no, wait a minute, how can I honor my culture and I just think there's so much beauty surrounding your story, and what is happening to the city, because of the efforts that you're making and God bless the Austrians God bless the Austrians for helping because we should.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): We should all be helping but, so I was wondering if you and once again I know a little bit more about this story just a little bit and I love the story and I love who you are, but I was just wondering if you would talk about those parts of the story.

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Sarah Stites: Sure sure so first yeah first of all address the country situation and how it's affected our work and you might remember Deborah that not only did we battle covert in 2020, but we also had a war.

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Sarah Stites: And this war started in September and ended in November and we lost over 4000 young men.

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Sarah Stites: And there are.

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Sarah Stites: Many young men who are also now sustaining disabilities and injuries, so one thing i'd like to share, which is sad but you know again we're doing what we can.

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Sarah Stites: we've initiated a couple new projects because we have this wonderful Center and we have a really professional team.

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Sarah Stites: With skill sets that are applicable to this aftermath of the war, and so we started to new projects, one is a psychosocial support program for families of war victims, and that was inspired because we had a young girl with autism who attended our Center and her father was killed in combat.

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Sarah Stites: and her mother was a volunteer with us here, and so we saw how this was also affecting our people, our beneficiaries and so we're not working with families to help them navigate psychologically.

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Sarah Stites: The trauma that they faced and in the spring, we will be starting a we're fundraising right now for a rehabilitative therapeutic program for.

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Sarah Stites: Disabled soldiers, because our therapists proposed this to our administrative documents, and we want to help after our work hours with the kids we want to use our expertise and our space to help the soldiers through physical therapy speech therapy and psychological work so Sarah.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Sarah i'm just gonna interrupt.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): ones that make sure that we have a link to that fundraiser place when you send the.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Information Antonio because we want to.

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Sarah Stites: Get her.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): audience I think nobody's going to hear the story and not be touched by it, because we're all working so hard to include people with disabilities, but just everything how everything is unfolding.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): very powerful story so excuse me.

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Sarah Stites: Well, I will I will include that Thank you yeah so I mean on that note, I will say that while.

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Sarah Stites: was definitely a challenge at the beginning, because of covert really coven was completely eclipsed by the war and so right now really the country's just trying to survive the economy is shot because of both the war and coven so our kids are still coming to the Center.

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Sarah Stites: You know, we take everyone's temperature when they come in and have hand sanitizer of course it's not very practical to have the kids wear masks because you know many children with special needs, you can't handle that.

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Sarah Stites: But, thankfully, things are going Okay, and we, I mean we also know it's it's a trade off if these children stay at home.

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Sarah Stites: Again, because our Community is not accessible can't even really get out of that house.

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Sarah Stites: And that is very detrimental psychologically and emotionally to them so we're trying to just you know, keep having them come here and be smart and wise about how we do it, and thank God it's been OK, thus far.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): and also your feet, the children and the you know a lot of these families, I mean just little things that maybe we don't think off.

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Sarah Stites: But the reality is.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): If they didn't come they might not eat to.

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Sarah Stites: You make you make a great point, thank you for reminding me of that to twofold here the winter and you raise brutal, I can tell you.

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Sarah Stites: And many of these families struggle to just heat their homes gas is wildly expensive compared to people's salaries.

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Sarah Stites: And so, our Center is warm and they are fed here that's a huge thing for these families to know that okay my child at least has this one square me on the day and we'll be warm from this hour to this hour.

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Sarah Stites: So yes, that is another huge huge service that we provide.

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Sarah Stites: So I will move to the bakery unless you guys have any.

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yeah.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): yeah we want you to move to the bakery but also after the bakery we want you just to talk a little bit about why you would do this Sarah because this is.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): We have the I think that's an important part of that but.

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Go ahead, please tell shirt.

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Sarah Stites: So I I have next to me here, this is our I don't know if you guys can see it, but this was the grand opening day of our bakery.

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Sarah Stites: And so what was thrilling for me is that the Center has been around you know for for a while, before I came, but the bakery open three months after I arrived in our media, so I got to play a huge role in the.

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Sarah Stites: PR and communications and marketing built up toward it and so it's really not it's kind of the same age as I, as my time in Armenia so it's very near and dear to my heart and.

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Sarah Stites: I was just there yesterday and my favorites.

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Sarah Stites: are young man named hobo with down syndrome, he it was his 20th birthday and I always say that that guy's hugs you're supposed to have someone hugs a day to fill your quota but one of his hug those are for the week.

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Sarah Stites: he's a delight, but I should move back and say the reason we opened this bakery is because we had a problem, where we saw that our Center was serving youth up to the graduation age of 1819.

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Sarah Stites: And after they left our Center again there was no work there's not work for completely abled people there was no work for people with disabilities, nothing for them to do.

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Sarah Stites: And so we ended up getting a grant from the European Union to do a project that involved the training component, as well as money to actually.

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Sarah Stites: construct to renovate an old building and turn it into armenia's first inclusive bakery and CAFE or a bakery.

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Sarah Stites: And our mission is to provide women opportunities or young adults with special needs, as well as moms have kids with disabilities, who also face obstacles to entrance to the work to deliver market so.

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Sarah Stites: I just am always so full of joy whenever I talk about this place, because it really is the sunniest the warmest corner in Korean people love coming there because.

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Sarah Stites: First of all, our pastries and our bread and our coffees are really top notch they're very high quality.

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Sarah Stites: But also just because of the atmosphere it's such a warm place to be and people love about the young man I mentioned before, I mean he he brings their pastries and coffee, which is huge smile and such joy and polo really taught me.

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Sarah Stites: An important lesson, and that is that people I always knew that people with special needs and with disabilities, of course, could work and, of course, have skills, but I never really.

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Sarah Stites: understood the reality that they have unique skill sets meaning, for example, that hobo is a better way better than I could be.

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Sarah Stites: i'm a classically abled person, but I couldn't have the joy that hobo has and the delight that he takes in his work.

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Sarah Stites: I just couldn't display that, in the same way and so he's he makes an excellent waiter and our young barista grecia.

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Sarah Stites: With cerebral palsy he to exhibit that sort of joy in his work, and he is so honored to have work he supports this both of these elements support their elderly parents with their paychecks and the dignity they feel in their work.

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Sarah Stites: fills me up this fills me up.

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Neil Milliken: I think this is great, because you talked before about the this sort of very low expectations that people have people have disabilities or learning differences.

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Neil Milliken: in Armenia and essentially what you're doing is flipping that completely on its head and they're becoming the bread makers and the breadwinners.

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Neil Milliken: And exactly you know that Ben is smashing stereotypes, so I think that's that's fantastic I really love this model I think it's really, really nice.

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Sarah Stites: Exactly exactly I I wrote a piece about our bakery for the newspaper Armenian weekly and they came up with a great.

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Sarah Stites: instagram caption for this for the story when they posted there, they said, we were breaking bread and barriers and it's true and you also get did a great what they're baking bread and winning bread right breadwinner.

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Neil Milliken: acres and.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): acres and breadwinners I wrote it down.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): You might want to use it in one of your campaigns.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): But the other one to breaking bread and.

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Sarah Stites: Barriers mm hmm yeah so yeah I mean Neil you're exactly right because, of course, that is another one of our goals is to change stereotypes through having people just enter our bakery and see.

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Sarah Stites: People with Disabilities working see the abilities of people with disabilities right that's mind blowing for people.

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Antonio Santos: And my my question goes exactly to, that is from the from the period that you are, that you are in Armenia and adore working on that project i'll do what observations ever made in relation to the impact in the local community.

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Sarah Stites: yeah that's a great question so as Deborah touched on earlier before we open to the bakery we were actually concerned.

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Sarah Stites: That people might not come to the bakery because of the fact that special needs folks work there and i'll give you a little anecdote to explain why so.

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Sarah Stites: We take our kids with special needs at the Center we take them to the pool in memory and moms of other kids complained to the staff at the pool saying that they thought their kids would hatch disabilities from our kids.

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Sarah Stites: So that was one of our concerns, we thought well if there's this fear that it's contagious if there's this fear that these people are sick and actually I kid you not the Armenian word the kind of rude Armenian word that people use for.

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Sarah Stites: Special Needs folks is Yvonne which means sick in Armenian so it kind of you know it's it's built into the culture to think that way, and especially very.

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Sarah Stites: People outside of the capital people in villages or smaller cities, you have this notion, and so, of course, slowly through education we can change that but, at the beginning, we just thought what's going to happen, our people not going to come.

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Sarah Stites: But gradually people came and I think it really helps that we had opinion leaders come the President of Armenia came.

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Sarah Stites: very, very early on, and he had just such a warm relationship with our staff, especially our two young men with down syndrome and.

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Sarah Stites: He you know said such wonderful things about us, I think he helped change people's perspectives and so.

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Sarah Stites: Right now, I can tell you that on every platform where it's possible to rate us we have five stars we've never received anything last.

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Sarah Stites: And five stars on Google my business on Facebook on Tripadvisor and.

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Sarah Stites: yeah people I mean look people are compelled as well by the quality of our products and that was another strategic decision we made we didn't want to just be any run of the mill bakery.

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Sarah Stites: We invested in training we actually got a pro bono trainer very highly qualified woman from year to on.

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Sarah Stites: The capital of Armenia to come and work with our staff and teach them and we have high quality ingredients, I say our pastries are the best in our media, and I am biased, but I believe.

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Sarah Stites: I really do, and so, if people are not coming for the for our staff they're coming for the pace pace and slowly we're working on them and i've i've seen changes I don't have proof.

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Sarah Stites: But I feel that I sense that, because of the growing popularity, the fact that people come from all around Armenia, people have heard about us and people see that it works, they just see it in action we're a model.

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Neil Milliken: Right such a such a powerful story and with the addition of cake, which is one of my favorite.

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Neil Milliken: And bread anything going.

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Sarah Stites: Oh yes.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Armenian coffee yummy I want some right now.

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Neil Milliken: you're getting me started so.

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Neil Milliken: Well yeah that would be amazing.

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Neil Milliken: Goodness me so do you have plans to roll this model out for them, it sounds like what you're doing is great, and also could be replicable obviously you don't want to overstretch but.

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Neil Milliken: This seems like something where you could have bakeries in in in more than one town and be doing this and and are pending those assumptions around Armenia and that.

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Neil Milliken: I can see how that would work really well.

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Neil Milliken: As a foundation, a plan.

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Sarah Stites: We do have big plans we do we have discussed opening a second branch of the bakery.

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Sarah Stites: But we want to do it in Korea, we want to have to endure a we want to have one focus more on catering, you want to expand our operations that way.

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Sarah Stites: One of the main reasons we don't want to have a branch, and yet on in the capital is because really we are sort of attraction bringing people from the capital to you agree.

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Sarah Stites: And we like it that way, because one of the biggest issues is that there's a brain drain from guillory to have on many of the talented young people move away from our city and we just think our duck is something special that brings people here, but we also do have other plans.

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Sarah Stites: I would like to open a business myself in Armenia and I have a lot of different ideas, but whatever I do open I for sure for sure, am going to be employing.

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Sarah Stites: Young people with special needs, who have graduated from our Center and on our training courses and I want to show them that we can have multiple inclusive businesses and is this model.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Sera Sera going with what Neil set of sort of following Neil what, what are the number one thing or what are some things you need right now I know you mentioned.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): That you're doing a fundraiser so we'll definitely put that out there, but you know our Community this love the story is going to touch so many hearts.

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Debra Ruh (she/her/hers): Are there other things that our community can help you with and, by the way, this question is not just for today, please come back to us and tell us, as you advance Michelle do other things, and as you need more things but are there any things communities could help you with right now.

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Sarah Stites: Oh, thank you.

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Sarah Stites: Well, to two things.

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Sarah Stites: to mind, besides the rehabilitative care project that I mentioned so.

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Sarah Stites: um 2020 was the first year that the Armenian Government actually supported our Center through funding, we received a grant for our services for children with autism, but this year we're not really sure why, but we did not get that grant.

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Sarah Stites: This year, so we're a little bit in alert.

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Sarah Stites: there's a possibility, we might get it, I think they're reviewing again the applicants, so we are looking to fundraise to to to fund that particular program and then with the bakery this is.

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Sarah Stites: The one that I myself am most excited about and really working to fund is that our cellar than the bakery is currently unfinished.

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Sarah Stites: It is the humidity problem and so we're unable to use it and our bakery space is very small.

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Sarah Stites: So, having that extra space down there would be three fold it would allow us to have more storage, so we wouldn't have to go through frequently to get around to get supplies, we could keep it all down there.

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Sarah Stites: The second is that we could expand our operations I mentioned catering that's something we really want to do is start doing events and so that would give us space to prepare catering in the basement.

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Sarah Stites: And then also our staff don't have any place to rest during their break because it's a very, very small space a cramped kitchen.

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Sarah Stites: And that has caused some problems in the past, especially with our special needs young adults just not having the space that they need to be at peace, and so we need about $10,000 to renovate that space.

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Sarah Stites: So yeah those those three things on my mind, in terms of.

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Sarah Stites: fundraising.

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Neil Milliken: Okay, do you have a go fund me or or or any other sort of.

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Neil Milliken: Direct fundraising campaign because there's all of these sort of ways, you can raise money on on the web, that we can we can tweet out links for.

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Neil Milliken: For that kind of stuff.

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Please feel yeah.

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Sarah Stites: That would be great one of the biggest issues is that a lot of those don't work from Armenia.

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Sarah Stites: For so many options and because we are not yet Deborah knows this, that hopefully this year, we want to start a 501 C three equivalent of the cartels are rock foundation, so we can start using all these amazing tools.

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Sarah Stites: So.

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Sarah Stites: yeah go fund me I think could work, but it would have to be done through a personal account or through a different organization and then the money would have to be transferred to us.

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and

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Antonio Santos: We know that the, the purpose of your project will fit in some of the initiatives that the United Nations system will goals pretends to achieve.

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Antonio Santos: And what.

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Antonio Santos: Are you doing any type of collaboration with any representatives of the UN in the region, every apply for an award, what can you what what have you done in that space.

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Sarah Stites: yeah so in the past, we have worked with us a ID with the EU.

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Sarah Stites: we've applied for various grants from different embassies, we work, as I mentioned, with a lot of Austrian foundations.

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Sarah Stites: We work with some US based foundations, but the UN really has not been on our radar recently, so thank you for that I will explore.

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Sarah Stites: What options, they have.

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Neil Milliken: So we're pretty much at the end of our half an hour it flies by, as always, I think we're going to have fun on Twitter we've got some great topics to talk about I just need to give our two things to the people that help keep us on and keep us.

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Neil Milliken: Virtually federal wanted Barclays access Michael ink and my clear text for helping keepers captioned and accessible.

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Neil Milliken: So, thank you very much, Sarah it's been a real pleasure talking with you and finding out about the work you're doing it's really great work looking forward to hope for a bright future for you Thank you again.

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Sarah Stites: Thank you so much it's my pleasure.