Mataghis is a village located near the northeast border of Nagorno Karabakh. It was occupied during the war by the Azerbaijanis, who emptied the village of Armenians and leveled it. Arthur Mejlumyan, the head of the village administration in Mataghis, said that the population after independence was three times smaller than before, although the village was of great importance to Karabakh.

This is why the Toronto office of the Armenia Fund has undertaken the construction of the village school.

Mkrtich Mkrtichyan, head of the Toronto office of the Fund, said that the primary criterion used for selecting Mataghis had been its proximity to the border.

“The future of Artsakh is very important to us, and the future of Artsakh is in its children.”

The Toronto office has implemented more than thirty projects in Karabakh. This is the third school built by Canadian-Armenians. The first was the Physics and Mathematics Boarding School in Stepanakert, constructed with the participation of the Armenian communities of France and Argentina as well. The second was the school in Shosh. “We never leave anything half-done,” said Mkrtich Mkrtichyan, “When the construction is 100% complete, we will send the furniture, immediately after which we will supply computers and set up a computer room. The furniture and computers will ensure that it becomes a modern school.”

While fundraising for the construction of the school in Mataghis, the Toronto office invited Baroness Caroline Cox, a “great friend of Artsakh”, to Toronto. The baroness gladly accepted the invitation and participated in fundraising with the Toronto office. Although the school is not yet complete, the residents of Mataghis have already had the fortune to host both Baroness Cox and representatives of the Toronto office.

Caroline Cox is not considered a guest at Mataghis. She is a familiar face to many and was at their side when the fled during the war, after the village was liberated, and now, when an important step is being taken to develop the village. She has many memories linked to Mataghis, but the most vivid remains a poem written by little Gegham in 1993, an English translation of which the baroness read to those present.

The school in Mataghis will be completed before the New Year and will open its doors to the village's 67 schoolchildren.

Community leader Arthur Mejlumyan was certain that the number of students would grow in the future. “Because we don't have a good school at this point, most of the army officers working here do not bring their families with them. When the new school is ready, they'll move their families here and the school will develop.”

After the construction of the school is completed, the Toronto office of the Hayastan Fund will also construct a school in Verin Horatagh, a village in the Martakert provincial region. These continuing projects also provide Karabakh Armenians with jobs, which is another very important contribution. “We created 80-100 jobs while building this school, for example. And because we will start building the next school the very day after this one is completed, those 80-100 people will continue working in another part of Karabakh. We sometimes don't notice this, but this is also an indirect benefit granted by the fund,” said Mkrtich Mkrtichyan, at the same time calling on Armenians from all over the world to be more generous in their contributions. “We cannot open just one school each year; it would take 80 years to rebuild all the schools in Artsakh. Nobody would wait 80 years to send their child to school.”