Armenian International Magazine AIM Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2000, pp. 52-53
The Armenian Evangelical School in Anjar
Providing a brighter future
Hratch Tchilingirian
Ara (not his real name) was four years old when a social worker brought him to the Armenian Evangelical boarding school in Anjar, the Armenian village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The school was already in session and the principal insisted that Ara should come at the beginning of the following year. But the social worker could not take Ara back. “You wouldn’t send him away if I told you where this child comes from,” pleaded the desperate social worker. Ara was very quiet and looked disturbed, says Rev. Nersess Balabanian, 40, who is in charge of the school. “The child’s father is a drug addict, his mother is a prostitute and he lives in a tiny room with two other little siblings,” explains Balabanian, “we couldn’t possibly return this child to that place.” They took him in.