The Hayastan All Armenian Fund announced that reconstruction of the water-supply system in Berdashen, a village in Nagorno Karabakh’s Martuni Region, continues on schedule. The project, worth 210 million drams (U.S. $555,000),  is financed jointly by the Hayastan All Armenian Fund’s Argentinean affiliate and the government of Artsakh. Major support for the initiative, which was launched in late 2008, was provided by Argentinean-Armenian benefactors Alicia Vosgerichian de Magarian, Hovsep Magarian, and Varujan Panossian, in honor of Takvor Magarian and Nvart Terzian Magarian.   Berdashen’s water-supply system, which was built in the 1960s, has long been in a state of disrepair. Through the Hayastan All Armenian Fund project, the pump station has been renovated, cancer-causing asbestos pipes have been replaced with plastic ones, and a 3.6-kilometer pipeline has been built, already supplying Berdashen with water. Currently the next phase of the initiative, the building of the internal water-distribution network, is underway. When this leg of the project is completed by autumn 2009, all 1,500 residents of Berdashen will receive a regular supply of water. “We are delighted for being able to address many of the urgent issues affecting the Martuni Region and helping improve the lives of the population,” said Ara Vardanyan, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund’s acting executive director. “I think the Berdashen project is a wonderful way to keep Takvor Magarian’s and Nvart Terzian Magarian’s memory alive.” To date, the Hayastan All Armenian Fund’s Argentinean affiliate has sponsored some 20 vital projects in Artsakh, mainly in the educational sphere. The affiliate’s most recent initiatives include the construction, in 2008, of an eight-kilometer water pipeline for Spitakashen, another village in the Martuni Region.