Junior starts non-profit to aid villages in Armenia

It’s not every day one comes across a college student who has created a nonprofit organization to aid rural villages in Armenia. Tomik Vertanous, co-founder and president of Hyer United, represents a slim portion of college students who have taken a leap forward in nonprofit work overseas.

Vertanous, a junior studying political science, co-founded Hyer United, a nonprofit organization which seeks to improve villages in the Republic of Artsakh in Armenia by gathering and shipping expired medical supplies and equipment. He created the organization after he came across the harsh set of realities for those who live in the poorest regions within Armenia.

Vertanous was compelled to make viable change in his homeland when he began to compare the dichotomy of available resources in America and Armenia. After transferring to USC in 2013, Vertanous began his search to recruit passionate students to join his nonprofit. Though many members of the nonprofit are USC students and alumni, any college student who desires to help can join.

“The region that we help is a developing region, and it is a war-torn region. Seeing the pictures and the kids that live there and seeing the lack of basic necessities that they don’t have really inspired us,” Vertanous said. “By looking at many of the issues that are surrounding the Armenian community now, here and internationally, I just saw fit to rather partake in those — partake in my own venture in benefitting Armenia in the fastest way I could possibly do it.”

Anita Barsekhi, the public relations director of Hyer United, discussed how her Armenian culture plays a large role in stimulating her passion to work for the non-profit.

“In our group of friends, everyone is very proud to be Armenian. We are really devoted to helping our country because when you go back and you see what it is like over there and you see how the people are living, it’s really sad because they don’t have the opportunities that we have here and by us living in the diaspora we have everything in our hands,” Barsekhi said.

She added that the difference in living situations inspired her work.

“But we look back at it, and we are like, ‘We come from here but our people don’t have this and it’s not fair,’” she said. “So we want to do what we can to help them out, because that is our homeland. That is where we are from.”

Vertanous understands the complexities of the global poverty crisis. His nonprofit organization represents a grassroots movement to build infrastructure within the regions of Armenia that need the most help. By studying political science at USC, he discussed how he learned the fundamental goal for his nonprofit organization.  Vertanous explained it is not to create dependency among the impoverished peoples in Armenia, but to provide the infrastructure to build self-sustaining communities.

“One fundamental concept that the charity coincides with is that we are like a bandage towards developing countries,” he said. “We are not a permanent resolution to their problems. We are just there to stop the bleeding and to help them recuperate from any kind of problems they are having, so they can sustain themselves in the long term — because aid only goes so far and we do not want to build dependency — we want to build self-sustainment.”

Vertanous said that he hopes the charity will serve only a temporary need.

“We are not looking to be a permanent charity,” he said. “I hope that this charity does not need to exist in the next 50 years. I hope that the aid goes a long way in helping stop the bleeding and then, having the people just build their own infrastructure, economy and providing their own healthcare.”

Since the nonprofit started, Vertanous has partaken in more than seven shipments, which constitutes about 80 boxes and hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical equipment. In order to ensure a large delivery during the holiday season, members had to ship boxes two months ago.  Due to the weight of the medical supplies, shipping must be done overseas and estimated arrival time for each shipment may be anywhere from two to three months.

According to Vertanous, receiving enough medical supplies to donate has never been an issue. Allocating the funds for shipping costs and finding dedicated members to help do so, however, has been difficult.

“It is hard finding a lot of members because no members get paid and neither do any of us. Almost 90 percent of our funds go to shipping expenses … Once we take hold of the equipment and medical supplies, we essentially inventory all of it, package it up, go accordingly to what [villages] need for the time being, consult with any oncologists or physicians on board with the charity, see whether or not [medical supplies] will be sufficient enough and from there we send it out,” Vertanous said.

Vertanous discussed the organization’s biggest accomplishment throughout the years.

“The actual positive impact we’ve had in the region shows,” Vertanous said. “I definitely feel like that was our biggest accomplishment through the years — seeing the help and seeing how far it went towards helping so many kids and individuals within those regions.”