Moshatagh Kindergarten

Since October 1st 2012 the Tufenkian Foundation has been partnering with ONEArmenia (1A), a new non-profit platform based in New York City and Yerevan. First of our collaborations is the Moshatagh Kindergarten Project.

Moshatagh is the largest village in Northern Kashatagh province of Karabagh. Heavily damaged after the 1990 -1993 war with Azerbaijan, the village is slowly being rebuilt. Moshatagh is the center village surrounded by other smaller villages. There are about 60 families in the village and each year the population is increasing and new families as settling in the very fertile area. The population’s main occupation is agriculture and animal husbandry.

The kids of Moshatagh have endless green pastures to play in, trees to climb and rivers to skip rocks in. But what they don’t have is truly essential: a kindergarten.

A kindergarten for the village has multiple benefits: it offers a learning and activity place for children and prepare them for school, will relieve mothers to do work, and it will create employment for villagers.

A stone building in the center of the village houses classrooms for school students, but does not have space to support a program for 4-6 year olds. The first floor of this building is unused and absolutely bare - the Tufenkian foundation would like to turn this open space into a kindergarten. Building materials and a construction team are already in place. Once completed, it would be a place of learning and play for the children of 60 families in Moshatagh and other students from neighboring Mirik, Bertik and Herik villages.