For about ten years Arsen Yeganyan’s family had to share their home with a larger family consisting of 16 members. The Yeganyan family includes Arsen (45), his wife Luiza (43), their sons; Movses (22), Mamikon (19), Vahan (17) and Edmond (10) and their daughter-in-law Meline (22). Arsen and Movses are employed in military service. Luiza is a housewife and is occupied with cattle-breeding and cultivation as well. Vahan is a college student, and Edmond attends school. Meline is expecting her first child and helps Luiza to manage the household.
Back in 1990 Arsen decided to live separately as the families expanded. He started to build a house on his own, but could never afford to complete it. Currently the house does not have the minimum living conditions. It completely lacks bathroom and toilet, the kitchen flooring is concrete and walls are not plastered. The second floor lacks inner construction and is mainly used for keeping pets. It is too hard to heat he house in winter.
Luiza says: "We are very depressed in these unbearable conditions. Now thanks to Habitat our lifelong dream will come true. We are also thinking of enlarging our family. I wish Habitat a long life to serve more families who are in need of better housing conditions.”
Though the family has stable income, it hardly covers their expenses. The family members are hard working people and they are used to do everything with their own hands and spare no efforts in order to minimize the expenses. However, they could never access traditional banking services, nor could save up money to finish the house on their own. Habitat Armenia became a “beacon” for this family to improve their housing conditions.
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