The AGBU press release reads:

POVERTY, TRANSITION AND DEMOCRACY IN ARMENIA

AGBU London lecture Series

PHOTO PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION

Centre for Armenian Information and Advice 
105a Mill Hill Road, Acton 
London W3 8JF 
Nearest tube: Acton Town 
29 June 2004. 7:30 pm. Admission Free.

AGBU London is pleased to host a presentation on poverty in the republic of Armenia. The speaker, Onnik Krikorian is a British photojournalist living in Armenia for the past five years. He identifies some of the crippling poverty and its probably long term consequences in Armenia today. The purpose of Krikorian's presentation is to share information, to cultivate a better understanding of everyday realities in Armenia, and to foster informed discussions when considering the future of Armenia and Armenians. The AGBU, the largest Armenian philanthropic organisation in the world, has a vested interest in promoting such understanding of Armenia.

The Armenian Government recently declared a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) to reduce poverty in Armenia to 20% by 2015. This is a major undertaking that merits serious attention and forms the backdrop to our guest speaker. Krikorian will share his insights through his experience working with international organizations and NGOs operating in the Republic, as well as his every-day interaction with ordinary people in Armenia. His talk will be illustrated with probing photographs and commentaries. He will also address other related issues such as corruption and the democraticization process in the Republic of Armenia today.

Finally, Krikorian will present a multimedia CD of his photographs and articles. This CD project was partly supported by AGBU London and aimed at NGOs working in Armenia. Copies will be available at the event.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: While in Armenia Krikorian has written and photographed for the United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF), Médecins Sans Frontières (France), Transitions Online, New Internationalist, Fox News, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, The Los Angeles Times, as well as Armenian Forum (Gomidas Institute), The Armenian Weekly, and others. He is currently working for the Association of Investigative Journalists of Armenia / HETQ Online.

For more information about the above presentation or AGBU (London) please contact Ara Sarafian at (020) 7602 7990 or email [email protected] 

The following is our interview with Onnik Krikorian:

What kind of project is it? Can you tell me about it, please.

Since the beginning of 2000 I started to specifically focus on issues relating to social vulnerability in Armenia in both my writing and photography. However, towards the middle of last year, I discovered something in particular that now dominates most of my work. That is, while we know that Armenia is one of the poorest countries in the world, what an outsider might consider poverty -- or at least a difficult life here -- is not what the Armenian Government considers poor. As you know, there is now a national poverty line that measures poverty specific to Armenia's situation and not according to other international methods of determining vulnerability.

As an example, when I interviewed Ashot Yesayan, the first Secretary at the Ministry of Social Security, last year and raised the issue of defining poverty in Armenia with him, he specifically stated that the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) is mainly concerned with those families that cannot afford to even eat. Since then, and based on my experience with vulnerable families, I have had to personally re-evaluate my own perception of poverty in Armenia. What once I considered poor by international standards is nothing compared to the poverty faced by those families defined as socially vulnerable in Armenian terms.

However, the project -- or rather the continuation of work I started four years ago -- isn't just about vulnerable families. It's also about other related issues such as corruption and the fact that when a significant percentage of the population lives in poverty, democratic development is frustrated and there are other adverse affects such as the slow growth of the kind of civil society that Armenia desperately needs.

I guess my project is simply trying to communicate the fact that poverty as it exists in Armenia today is not something that should be rationalized because it has other side effects on the development of the nation. It is of paramount importance that initiatives such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) is supported and that sufficient oversight and transparency is in place to ensure that society is aware of the issues at hand so that it can discuss the problems and become part of the solution.

"Poverty, transition & democracy in Armenia"-is this the title of your project?

I'm afraid I'm rather hopeless with titles in general, so yes, this is the title of my project for want of a better one. As I said, I hope to deal with other related issues such as corruption, the independent media, democracy, conflict etc. -- basically, all those problems that Armenia faces in this period of transition.

What is going to take place on June 29 th ?

Towards the end of this stage of my project, the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) - London supported my work. In return, I shall be presenting a collection of my photos and articles that are available on CD. I shall be addressing many of the issues relating to poverty, transition and democracy in Armenia and those that attend can walk away with the multimedia presentation on disc which has no restriction on redistribution. The aim is to present an audience in London with information that they are perhaps not receiving from any other source and hopefully, to initiate discussion and debate in the Diaspora. This is something that in my opinion is not happening at the moment but it is necessary. Of course, I won't just be concentrating on the negative. I shall also be talking about the work being undertaken by international organizations and local NGOs as well as looking at possible solutions.

What kind of articles and photographs are on the CD?

The images are perhaps a weird mix given that I also deal with the recent elections and the danger of landmines in addition to the otherwise very narrow subject matter of poverty in Armenia. However, they basically represent my day-to-day encounters with people and issues that I consider significant enough to warrant immediate attention from society, the Diaspora and the international community. This might be images taken during over three years documenting children enrolled in children's homes or boarding schools in Armenia, for example, or images taken during three months spent with social workers from Médecins Sans Frontières (France) as they provide albeit limited social services to socially vulnerable families in Yerevan.

There are also images of resettlement in the new Kashatagh region situated between Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh and photographs taken while working with Hetq Online. Probably it's best to describe the articles and photographs as being representative of some of the work that I've pursued while attempting to understand the situation in Armenia as a concerned individual. I think it's fair to say that the Diaspora have probably never seen such images before. Certainly, they depict the reality as faced by many people here and it's about time that people were made aware of the problems. Otherwise, vulnerable families will just remain hidden away in their homes or in the case of children from vulnerable families, in over fifty residential institutions scattered throughout the whole of Armenia.

At the same time, those international organizations and local NGOs working on these issues need support from outside. We urgently need to discuss and debate all of these issues.

What can you say about this discussion?

Probably the main thing that will make this presentation interesting is that I hope that not only Diaspora Armenians will attend but also any non-Armenian academics, analysts, journalists and organizations interested in developments in the Southern Caucasus and Armenia in particular. The presentation will also be "interactive" in the sense that as I don't like sitting in a room being lectured to, I don't expect to do the same to an audience assembled to listen to me. Throughout the presentation I want the audience to react and even criticize or simply to ask questions relating to something I've said. I want to encourage discussion based on the images presented to the audience and my own personal accounts of families, situations and issues that I have encountered to date.

Basically, the debate and discussion will be informed because I have years of experience immersed in these issues as a freelance photojournalist an as someone who has worked in cooperation with international organizations and local NGOs dealing with these problems. And, because I experience issues such as poverty, corruption or inadequate medical services on an almost daily basis, I think my presentation will be unique in that respect. But to repeat my initial point again, I don't want people to just sit and listen to me. I'd also like them to ask probing questions and to even rationalize or criticize me so that we can start a process of debate and discussion.

As a result, I have already sent an invitation to the Armenian Embassy in London in the hope that they can attend. Not so that we can argue but simply in order for them to represent the Armenian Government's position and to highlight the importance of resolving the many problems faced by Armenia today.

What will be the result of your presentation?

To be honest, I don't know. My hope is that a significant number of Armenians and non-Armenians will attend so that this debate and discussion on poverty, corruption and other issues can be initiated. Certainly there is the need to engage the Diaspora in such a process and very definitely the need to present reliable information to the outside world. At the very least, some kind of discussion and dissemination of information will occur and I hope I can continue with my work to take the debate to another level after returning to Armenia. Let's see.