Bringing Quality Education to Rural Armenia

This fundraiser is organized by Oxford Armenia Foundation.

OUR 2023 FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN IS NOW CLOSED FOR DONATIONS. YOU CAN SUPPORT OAF'S 2024 PROJECTS HERE: https://gofund.me/53659896

Please watch our end-of-year review showcasing OAF's 2023 achievements. Your donations and support have been a driving force behind our accomplishments. Thank you for being a part of our journey!

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Please help Oxford Armenia Foundation and Books for Hope raise funds to purchase books and educational supplies for our inspiring and engaging grassroots projects in 2023.

Who we are

Oxford Armenia Foundation (1193788) and Books for Hope Armenia are non-profit educational charities working together to strengthen the literacy, numeracy skills and well-being of children and young adults in rural schools and communities. We have a shared vision of enhancing educational opportunities for children in rural Armenia. We achieve our objectives by developing and implementing various educational programmes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the most socio-economically deprived and isolated areas of Armenia.

Our shared values

We believe that inclusive quality education:

Reduces inequalities by addressing each pupil’s specific needs
Enables socioeconomic mobility by tackling the consequences of poverty
Fosters creativity for new hopes

Context and focus

Since its independence in 1991, the Republic of Armenia has been facing the challenges of ongoing war and poverty disproportionately impacting children in rural areas.

Your donations will be spent on acquiring

Books

age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction books
reference books on a range of topics for teachers and students to enhance classroom teaching and learning
early readers books
foreign language books

Educational supplies

art and crafts material (visual displays and supplies for after-school clubs)
sports equipment
scientific equipment (calculators and various supplies for scientific experiments)

Please read about our 2023 projects below and do contact us if you would like to discuss any of these projects with us in more detail.

Total budget: £6000

Every penny raised through this crowdfunding is spent entirely on implementing the projects. Both charities operate on a voluntary basis.

Our projects in 2023

Reading Hubs

This project aims to create six community reading hubs in rural areas of the Lori region with low/no access to early years educational provision. 80 children aged three to five will be engaged in creatively facilitated reading hubs twice a week for four hours; the hubs will develop their love of reading, socioemotional skills, reading motivation and comprehension in a safe and child-centred learning environment. In partnership with NorArar, an educational charity specialising in literacy, we will recruit and train six community reading facilitators with a passion for reading, to deliver unique early years reading curriculum. The project implementation will require the acquisition of books and the training of local teachers/librarians.

Engage & Empower Project

Engage & Empower is a program of safe, fun and engaging after-school clubs where children learn through experiences. The project is targeting disadvantaged and remote schools that have previously benefited from book donations and the Goris community centre. We will provide the necessary supplies and local teachers to run a variety of free after-school clubs: foreign language learning, arts and crafts creations, science experiments or sports clubs.

We believe after-school clubs provide a space for children to engage in situations where they put into practice core skills such as critical thinking, public speaking and confidence building. This project aims to empower rural children to think positively to overcome obstacles and achieve their own goals.

A pilot club is already running in a small rural school in the Syunik region where children attend the English language club. This is an opportunity for 13 to 15 years old from the school to develop their communication and organisational skills through discussions and presentations.

One school library a month project

This project is driven by the necessity to close the educational gap between urban and rural areas of Armenia. We aim to create easy access to books in disadvantaged schools in an effort to support literacy skills building and engage children to develop their curiosity and critical thinking.

To achieve this goal, we have partnered with Teach for Armenia to identify schools in need of engaging library books. Each month, we work with a school community to provide a range of fiction and non-fiction books to boost their library stock.

With a £200 budget per school library per month, we can buy a stock of modern extracurricular books managed by a Teacher-Leader. Together with the teachers, we handpick each book according to novelty, popularity and subject-based books complementing lessons.

We kickstarted the project this month with our first school library beneficiary:

Zangakatun Middle School and its 150 pupils in the Ararat region are about to receive book donations to replenish its library.

We can only achieve this with your help and support! Please support us by donating and sharing this page. Every contribution matters.