The Family and Community nonprofit’s Arts and Crafts Therapy program is providing crucial healing through creative expression. With every donation matched by the Tufenkian Foundation, contributions will help double the impact in assisting traumatized children process their experiences through music, painting, and pottery. With community support, the organizations will unlock the healing potential of art therapy for underprivileged children in Armenia.
According to UNICEF, as of September 2023, one in 16 children in Armenia is considered a refugee following the forced displacement from Artsakh. Over 100,000 Armenians, including 36,000 children, sought refuge in Armenia, joining the 26,700 Artsakh Armenians who had already settled there after the 2020 War.
Verjik Safarian, a child and family psychologist who relocated from Toronto to Armenia in March 2022, now works at the Metsamor Center. In a recent interview with “Torontohye” (in Western Armenian), she shared insights about the organization’s innovative Arts and Crafts Therapy program.
“Art, creative thinking, and handwork help children and adults who have experienced trauma to rebuild their inner world and manage their emotions,” Safarian explains. “Art therapy is conducted through music, painting, and pottery. The program now includes families forcibly displaced from Artsakh.”
As a child psychologist, Safarian emphasizes the crucial role of art therapy for vulnerable children: “Vulnerable children are often withdrawn and don’t communicate verbally, making their emotional world inaccessible. Art helps explain, reveal, and develop a person’s emotional world. The results are never judged or criticized; instead, children are given the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings. This soothes their wounded emotional world.”
The impact of the Family and Community’s Arts and Crafts Therapy program is particularly evident among displaced families from Artsakh. “These families entered our centers grieving, wounded, and disillusioned,” Safarian notes. “A year later, they’re sharing their full emotional and human capacity. This is what true integration into a new way of life looks like.”
The five “Family and Community” NGO centers currently serve over 550 children, including those displaced from Artsakh. The organization was founded in Metsamor, a town in Armenia’s Armavir region. The NGO began its work there during the economic hardships of the late 1990s, under the sponsorship of the Tufenkian Foundation and the leadership of Knarik Garanfilian. It now also operates in centers in Armavir, Ijevan, Noyemberyan, and Artik.
Transform a child’s trauma into hope through the power of art by donating today.
