14 August, 2016

Artyom Hovhannisyan is a regular attendee of the Emili Aregak, Caritas Armenia’s day care centre for disable children. He is 13 and lives with a mental disability. After hard work and dedication, Artyom recently succeeded to master the Armenian alphabet and to read.

Last 21 June, Artyom achieved another milestone in his life. He delivered a TED talk at the TEDxKids held at the Tumo Centre for creative technologies in Yerevan.

His speech was about a unique message: The importance of reading and learn the “traditional” way instead of spending more time in front of a computer.

“The computers are keeping us away from reading books, interacting with our friends and from real life outside. I wish all the kids read more and become educated and learned professions. I wish they help their parents more and make them be proud of their children”. These were the concluding words in Artyom’s speech.

Artyom did not travel alone to Yerevan. He was encouraged and supported by his friends from Emili Aregak, who attended the event.

Artyom is very goal oriented. He wants to to read many books. “As soon as I become fluent in reading, the first book I will take will be The Bible”, says Artyom proudly. His dream is to become a computer programmer and he encourages his future peers to read books.

The goal of TEDxKidsYerevan is to provide a platform for young people for raising the issues they are worried about and interested in. It is a place where they can talk about their specific successes, discoveries, investigations and stories. This is the 6th year that TEDxKids takes place in Armenia. The first time that children from Emili Aregak participated in this event was in 2012.

“Emili Aregak will continue to cooperate with TEDxKids because it is a great opportunity for the children to discover more about the world that surrounds them, share their ideas on this and interact with other children from accross Armenia,” said Tigranhui Akopyan, Director of Emili Aregak.