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Last month the WiRED–Armenia team conducted a training in Yerevan, Armenia, for members joining the program and establishing new health centers in their respective communities throughout the country.
Project Coordinator Inna Maghakyan reported that the event included newly added WiRED-Armenia representatives Arpine Baghdoyan (Near East Foundation), Anna Arshakyan (Tatev Foundation NGO), Angelina Arshakyan (Angel Social and Educational Cultural NGO) and Narine Baghdodyan (WiRED translator).
The meeting comprised trainings on polio and on quitting tobacco, two health issues crucial to Armenians. Afterwards, the participants presented their feedback, asked questions and made important suggestions for the trainings. Highlighting the importance of WiRED-Armenia activities, the attendees expressed their enthusiasm to participate in the dissemination of WiRED health education modules in their communities.
The representatives of the new WiRED-Armenia centers also agreed that they would inventory their communities for the most pressing health needs and propose these topics to WiRED International for new health learning modules. Those modules will be written in English for global dissemination and translated into Armenian by the WiRED-Armenia team, involving a half-dozen Armenian volunteers and led by orthopedic surgeon emeritus Ara Nahabedian, M.D. To date, WiRED offers a series of 19 health education modules in the Armenian language — and many more are in the works.
WiRED Director Gary Selnow, Ph.D., said, “It’s rewarding to see the community health training programs expanding in Armenia. Much of this growth has been due to the organizational skills of Sebouh Baghdoyan, the director of WiRED-Armenia, and the engine behind the increase in WiRED’s work there. Now, the new representatives and the new training programs, along with an increasing number of modules in the Armenian language, will enable the team to reach ever larger numbers of people throughout Armenia.”
WiRED in Armenia
Since 2012 WiRED has worked in Armenia to provide programs that allow doctors, healthcare workers and community members access to critical education to combat health issues relevant to Armenia’s underserved people. Health learning events, employing WiRED’s training modules, have been sponsored by WiRED-Armenia, its close partner on many critical community education projects. Today, poverty and the lack of reliable medical information are creating a healthcare crisis for the people of this Eurasian country. For information on WiRED’s work in Armenia, go to the WiRED-Armenia Facebook page. WiRED-Armenia operates under the guidance of Director Sebouh Baghdoyan.
In a new and considerably expanded program in Armenia, WiRED, in partnership with Caritas Armenia, will run one segment of a four-country test of its new community health worker program. This means translation work is needed on another 16 modules designed to train a cadre of health workers to assist medical professionals throughout Armenia.
WiRED’s Partnerships in Armenia
Last July, WiRED announced the receipt of a memorandum of understanding from the Republic of Armenia’s Ministry of Health.
The letter, which came from Deputy Minister Lena Nanushyan, formally acknowledged WiRED’s educational programs for continuous professional development of healthcare providers, and it stated the Armenian government’s support of WiRED activities.
This letter further enriches partnerships, which WiRED has established in that country, and has reported on in recent stories on its collaborations with Armenian Caritas and WiRED-Armenia.
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