The Armenian Mirror-Spectator. WATERTOWN – The Central Board of the Tekeyan Cultural Association of the United States and Canada (TCA) has sent the Vahan Tekeyan School of Beirut, Lebanon an emergency donation of $10,000 due to the difficulties it faces as a result of the ongoing economic and political crises in Lebanon, now compounded due to the coronavirus pandemic.
TCA has supported the school since its inception. In fact, TCA was formed on the basis of auxiliary committees which worked to raise funds for the school in the United States prior to TCA’s establishment as a separate organization. Afterwards, TCA continued the support provided by those auxiliary committees, and Armenians in the US and Canada continued generously to support the development of the school, which started at the elementary level and expanded to intermediate.
The school was founded in 1951 to serve Armenian students living in shanty houses in the impoverished quarters of Sanjak and Tiro, where Armenian refugees from Alexandretta settled after 1939. Its current three-story building (funded by the Barsamian family of benefactors in the US) was inaugurated in 1965 in the Bourdj Hammoud neighborhood, populated predominantly by Armenians. The school expanded from kindergarten and elementary school grades to an intermediary level in 1991.
While the Central Board knows that this crisis is getting worse, and the needs of the Vahan Tekeyan School are great, it also knows that the Tekeyan School has many friends throughout the world. Those who wish to help the school in these difficult times may send their donations through the TCA headquarters at the following address, Tekeyan Cultural Association, 755 Mount Auburn Street, Watertown, MA 02472.
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Caption: Festival at the Vahan Tekeyan School of Beirut
