The Children of Sonasar will have access to a kindergarten
On July 14th, the opening ceremony of the kindergarten took place, children of Sonasar welcomed people to participate with traditional bread and salt, recitations and songs.
During the ceremony, representatives of the Kashatagh regional administration thanked the benefactors for the importance of the role of educational institutions in the establishment and development of settlements and development of this work.
“Today we are opening this kindergarten with a special feeling, that became a reality through My Step Foundations, and its partners. This is one of the cases, where we’ve combined our steps to bring an important initiative, and children of several mountain regions/communities to finally have a kindergarten”, said the Executive Director of My Step Foundation, Hovhannes Ghazaryan during the opening ceremony.
The Sonasar Kindergarten will serve twenty children from the rural communities of Sonasar, Msheni, Hochants and Arvakan. Eight of the children are from the Sonasar village (7 boys, and one girl), and twelve are from the other three villages. The renovation and furnishing of the kindergarten was made possible through the joint efforts of My Step Foundation, Fox On Children Now Organization, AS NGO and Artsakh Free Homeland organization. Antares Publishing House has donated forty five illustrated children’s literature to the kindergarten.
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Sonasar village has a historical past. It is located on the right bank of the river Hochants on about 1,350 meters high above sea level. In the Middle Ages, it was part of the region Aghahech and later Kashatagh of the Syunik province of Mets Hayk. According to Stepanos Orbbelyan’s memoir, Sonasar-Dzunasar has given six portions of taxes to Tatev Monastery. Armenians were expelled from the village in the 18th century similar to the rest of the Armenian settlements in the area. The village had a church with columns, which according to witnesses, was demolished in the 1930s. The village was liberated in the spring of 1993, and repopulated two years later. The main occupation of the population is cattle breeding, beekeeping, and farming. The village school is named after Samson Kyureghyan, a deceased freedom fighter. The school has seventeen students and eight teachers. In the new school year, two students will be admitted to the first grade. There is a need for a physics and foreign language teacher.