Description

Transportation issue addressed for Metz Ayrum Community

Alaverdi ADP beneficiary Mets Ayrum community (1) consists of two administrative areas: Small Ayrum and Big Ayrum, the distance between these two areas comprises 3 km. To reach community school and kindergarten (situated in Big Ayrum) children had to walk by foot nearly 3 km, despite of any weather condition. To address community residents’ complains, Community municipality decided to allocate 30,000 AMD per month from the Local self government (LSG) budget and contracted company operating Alaverdi-Chochkan intercommunity public transportation. However, the latter failed to ensure accuracy in the bus schedule: i.e. late arrivals or no showing up at all, etc, made people still rely on ‘their own feet’.


In December 2012, transportation problem was raised again during the education sector Focus group discussions with children, teachers and parents facilitated by Community Active Group (CAG) under “Improved Public Services in Sisian and Alaverdi ADPs through Citizen Empowerment” project. Ultimately, this issue was recognized as a high priority to be addressed by community development plan.

Further upon the issue was presented to Community council and the village Mayor by Community Active Group in January 2013. As a result, an agreement was gained to allocate budget to buy a minibus. The bus was purchased in March 2013 and since then the issue of reaching Small Ayrum was solved: secure physical access to pre-school and mainstream school education was significantly improved for nearly 20 children and their families from Small Ayrum area. As revealed by ADP regular monitoring, Small Ayrum area residents exhibited high satisfaction with this achievement. One of parents noted, “Now our children are attending classes regularly, and we are not worried about them, because they do not have to go through such a long way by foot to reach the school”.

(1)Mostly inhabited by refugees from Artsakh (Karabakh) - Shamshor, Khanlar, Vardashen, Shahumyan, Dashkesan and from Baku and Kirovabad.