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WHY ARE ORPHANAGES TERRIBLE? RECOLLECTIONS OF FORMER ARMENIAN STUDENTS.
by Hasmik Hambardzumyan
HULIQ.com
http://www.huliq.com/3257/armenian-orphanage-recollections
Dec 15 2011
SC
This is the latest in a series of articles on orphanages in the country
of Armenia, in which the recollections of former students are retold.
"I felt myself very lonely." A graduate of Lichk asylum in Meghri
marz of Armenia Artak Sargsyan recollects his entering adult life at
a distance of 30 years. He and his two sisters found themselves in the
orphanage in 1979, when they lost their parents. Artak at first lived
in orphanage in the town of Gavar, Gekarkunik marz. However, a few
years later he was moved to Meghri. Four years after it was opened,
the Lichk orphanage was closed as it did not meet the expectations of
Soviet authorities to complement population of Meghri with children
from an orphanage. The graduates of Lichk argue that just few of them
have received apartments in Meghri and live there until now.
In Armenia, the children from orphanages are treated with a certain
stigma; people either feel sorry for them or do not trust them.
Sometimes, they just reject them. "The felling of rejection always
accompanied me", Artak recalls.
In general, who is the child from an orphanage? The students in an
orphanage argue that they are just like all the other children in
everything. Their feelings and their perceptions are the same, just
like all the others they start with not what the adults want to get
from them, but with how they sense the world around them.
To respond to the question of who the orphanage kid is, first one
should realize what this child is deprived of. It will not be correct
to say that the child lacks communication with people. To say that the
child lacks communication with other children would not be true either,
since these children do not have a lack of communication with other
children. What these children lack is the mother and the sense of
proximity, by which we understand the relatives and the world around
them. This world suggests communication based on preferences ---
I want to talk to these relatives and I do not want to communicate
with those, suggests communication with the street as of caprice,
when the mother has to feed the kid but he is running out into the
garden to play with others. This is to say a kid from an orphanage
is someone who does not have opportunity to choose and their feelings
are shaped, so to say, within limited choice.
"If I had felt the tenderness and caressing by my parents, that would
give me power, would be my support. Separation from a family creates
a stress in a child. The feeling of missing accompanies the person
all throughout the lifetime, the child is not self-confident in this
respect, the natural distraction often brings about the sense of
hopelessness, results in psychological declines for the person ---
there are no parents", Artak recollects his situation from the past.
After all, the orphanage child is not destined to feel the aura which
creates the childhood of a person, to bring an example, when a child
growing in a family wants a candy, the mother will provide this candy
at any cost. And if she cannot buy it, she feels pain in her heart,
and her only mother's look can replace the lack of candy for a kid.
The child from an orphanage has never seen that look, has not
sensed it.
Gagik Shamshyan, a well-known photo correspondent in Armenia,
was left by his mother 41 years ago when he was just three months
old. "When I used to ask my teachers about my mother, father, they
would either tell me I was born from a red apple, or under the walls
of the orphanage building," he recollects 25 years after leaving the
orphanage. "There are no illegal children, there are illegal parents".
This is a nail in one of the papers written by him when a child. His
teachers in the orphanage tried to compensate for the caring of mother,
absent from his life --- comrade Lusja and comrade Vera.
Later, when he with great difficulty managed to find his mother, meet
with her, he realized: "each time I saw her I remembered the orphanage,
the teachers, comrade Lusja and comrade Vera, I was missing them".
Writer and journalist Mher Arshakyan, who left an orphanage 22 years
ago, describes the location where the abandoned kids live: "Orphanage
is the creation of those mothers who had seen their child. This is
to say the orphanage begins for a kid after the mother looks into the
child's eyes. The orphanage is the opposite of a mother. This is the
reason that an orphanage is so terrible".
According to him, a child from an orphanage will never learn what a
mother is, this child will not be a son or a daughter, in the chain
of responsibilities towards the environment some natural values will
be missing - parents and relatives. "And there is just a small hope,
that on his/her path of life the child will realize that no matter
how mother's love is needed, she should not be condemned, as there is
not a single sin in the world not worthy of forgiveness," he writes
in one of his works.
by Hasmik Hambardzumyan
HULIQ.com
http://www.huliq.com/3257/armenian-orphanage-recollections
Dec 15 2011
SC
This is the latest in a series of articles on orphanages in the country
of Armenia, in which the recollections of former students are retold.
"I felt myself very lonely." A graduate of Lichk asylum in Meghri
marz of Armenia Artak Sargsyan recollects his entering adult life at
a distance of 30 years. He and his two sisters found themselves in the
orphanage in 1979, when they lost their parents. Artak at first lived
in orphanage in the town of Gavar, Gekarkunik marz. However, a few
years later he was moved to Meghri. Four years after it was opened,
the Lichk orphanage was closed as it did not meet the expectations of
Soviet authorities to complement population of Meghri with children
from an orphanage. The graduates of Lichk argue that just few of them
have received apartments in Meghri and live there until now.
In Armenia, the children from orphanages are treated with a certain
stigma; people either feel sorry for them or do not trust them.
Sometimes, they just reject them. "The felling of rejection always
accompanied me", Artak recalls.
In general, who is the child from an orphanage? The students in an
orphanage argue that they are just like all the other children in
everything. Their feelings and their perceptions are the same, just
like all the others they start with not what the adults want to get
from them, but with how they sense the world around them.
To respond to the question of who the orphanage kid is, first one
should realize what this child is deprived of. It will not be correct
to say that the child lacks communication with people. To say that the
child lacks communication with other children would not be true either,
since these children do not have a lack of communication with other
children. What these children lack is the mother and the sense of
proximity, by which we understand the relatives and the world around
them. This world suggests communication based on preferences ---
I want to talk to these relatives and I do not want to communicate
with those, suggests communication with the street as of caprice,
when the mother has to feed the kid but he is running out into the
garden to play with others. This is to say a kid from an orphanage
is someone who does not have opportunity to choose and their feelings
are shaped, so to say, within limited choice.
"If I had felt the tenderness and caressing by my parents, that would
give me power, would be my support. Separation from a family creates
a stress in a child. The feeling of missing accompanies the person
all throughout the lifetime, the child is not self-confident in this
respect, the natural distraction often brings about the sense of
hopelessness, results in psychological declines for the person ---
there are no parents", Artak recollects his situation from the past.
After all, the orphanage child is not destined to feel the aura which
creates the childhood of a person, to bring an example, when a child
growing in a family wants a candy, the mother will provide this candy
at any cost. And if she cannot buy it, she feels pain in her heart,
and her only mother's look can replace the lack of candy for a kid.
The child from an orphanage has never seen that look, has not
sensed it.
Gagik Shamshyan, a well-known photo correspondent in Armenia,
was left by his mother 41 years ago when he was just three months
old. "When I used to ask my teachers about my mother, father, they
would either tell me I was born from a red apple, or under the walls
of the orphanage building," he recollects 25 years after leaving the
orphanage. "There are no illegal children, there are illegal parents".
This is a nail in one of the papers written by him when a child. His
teachers in the orphanage tried to compensate for the caring of mother,
absent from his life --- comrade Lusja and comrade Vera.
Later, when he with great difficulty managed to find his mother, meet
with her, he realized: "each time I saw her I remembered the orphanage,
the teachers, comrade Lusja and comrade Vera, I was missing them".
Writer and journalist Mher Arshakyan, who left an orphanage 22 years
ago, describes the location where the abandoned kids live: "Orphanage
is the creation of those mothers who had seen their child. This is
to say the orphanage begins for a kid after the mother looks into the
child's eyes. The orphanage is the opposite of a mother. This is the
reason that an orphanage is so terrible".
According to him, a child from an orphanage will never learn what a
mother is, this child will not be a son or a daughter, in the chain
of responsibilities towards the environment some natural values will
be missing - parents and relatives. "And there is just a small hope,
that on his/her path of life the child will realize that no matter
how mother's love is needed, she should not be condemned, as there is
not a single sin in the world not worthy of forgiveness," he writes
in one of his works.