About Us

Background

Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) is a landlocked region of just 1,700 square miles located between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The land is home to nearly 150,000 Armenians and has been for thousands of years.

In 1920, the entire region including Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan fell under Soviet rule. Soviet leadership against the will of the people put the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region under control of Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, where Artsakh Armenians suffered poor treatment and discrimination by Soviet Azerbaijan authorities.

As the Soviet system started to erode in the late 1980’s, Artsakh Armenians sought unification with their motherland Armenia in a form of a legal referendum. Azerbaijan authorities responded by military force, committing mass atrocities against the civilian population. Against all odds, this war ended in victory for the Nagorno Karabakh and resulted in a cease fire in 1994. Despite a cease fire agreement, Azeri military escalations occurred intermittently in the years that followed.

April 2016 Escalation

Rich on oil revenue, Azerbaijan’s military budget grew significantly. Nearly two decades of aggressive military spending was put into action on April 2, 2016 when Azerbaijan mounted a full-scale military invasion of the Artsakh. Dozens of tanks, helicopters, assault drones, and troops invaded Artsakh in a war that lasted 4 days. Fortunately, Artsakh defended well and lost no significant ground. However, nearly 100 military men including draftees, officers, and volunteers were killed. Many families lost their only breadwinner.

The Diaspora for Frontline Family Fund

The Knights of Vartan (Ararat Lodge) (www.kofv.org) created a committee in 2016 to investigate how we could help. A new fund was created – Diaspora for Frontline Families Fund (DFFF) at www.kovcasp.org. An existing Knights of Vartan National Committee supporting orphans in the Tavush region was extended to include the DFFF fund. This enabled DFFF to quickly leverage existing transparent and verifiable mechanisms that had already been vetted and approved nationally for distributing funds to the children. All overhead costs are absorbed by the DFFF ensuring that 100% of your donation is distributed directly to the families.

Today’s Crisis
(2020 WAR)

Azerbaijan restarted hostilities on September 27, 2020, with mounting a military invasion of an unprecedented scale across the entire border, this time using hundreds of tanks, assault drones and even modern heavy artillery targeting civilian population. This time Azerbaijan’s unprovoked aggression was supported by Turkish military and hired Syrian Jihadist mercenaries, unmasking the pre-mediated and pre-planned nature of this coordinated attack. Despite the heroic efforts of the outnumbered Artsakh defense forces, significant loss of life and land, as well as damage to the infrastructure and environment has occurred.

Numerous War Crimes were committed by Azerbaijan, including barbaric torture of POWs and captured civilians alike, using weapons prohibited by Geneva convention (cluster munitions, white phosphorus) against civilian objects (apartment buildings, art centers, churches and hospitals) and civilian infrastructure (power grids, roads and bridges), as well as causing toxic damage to the surrounding ecological environment.

Thousands of people have died and tens of thousands had to leave their homes and become refugees. More time is needed to evaluate the real scale of loss of human life and damage to the infrastructure.

Objective

62 children lost their father during the April 2016 War. DFFF in partnership with Children of Armenia Sponsorship Program (CASP) committed to providing each of these children $250 annually until their 18th birthday. $107,580 has been raised and $75,000 has been successfully distributed to date.

Unfortunately, the 2020 War requires that we expand our assistance to a much greater degree to now include children from this new war. Our goal is to ensure that every single child of our fallen heroes will receive an annual donation until their 18th birthday, however, given the large scale of this catastrophe and limited resources, the priority will be given to families with more than 2 children and/or to families that lost their homes (in addition to losing a military parent).

We are looking for annual sponsors who will agree to pay $250 annually. However, donations of any amount are appreciated.

Funds Raised and Distributed to Date for April 2016 War (as of July 2021)

We are pleased to report that as a result of donations and other fund‐raising activities, $118,000 has been raised with $75,000 having been distributed by DFFF to date. Annual collections and disbursements to the children are detailed below:

Funds Raised for children of 2020 War (as of July 2021)

We are pleased to report that as a result of donations and other fund‐raising activities, $211,000 has been raised with $71,250 having been distributed by DFFF to date. Annual collections and disbursements to the children are detailed below:

Verification Process

Working with the Armenian federal government, regional governors, local municipalities, organizations, and activists on the ground we were able to identify around 950 children of our fallen heroes from 10 regions. The list is constantly being updated by the DFFF team. With the help of Fund for Armenian Relief (farusa.org), we then went through a rigorous verification processes, including gathering father’s death certificates to make sure they indeed died in action, gathering children’s birth certificates to make sure they are real, interviews with families to make sure they need support, gathering their mothers’ passport and bank account information so direct deposits to their bank accounts can be made with maintaining receipts.

While this work has been a largely a manual process due to the realities on the ground in Armenia, it has laid the foundation for our ongoing efforts. Having gone through the effort of building a verifiable list of children and families affected by the war not only built the foundation for supporting these families, but also resulted in a partnership with the Karagheusian Foundation (thkcc.org) and Armenian Missionary Association of America (amaa.org). Both organizations are now providing annual funding for children that DFFF and FAR have identified and verified.

Tax Deductible Donations

The Knights of Vartan Charitable Fund is a registered 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. Tax receipts will be provided for all donations of $250 or more. All proceeds will be deposited to the charitable fund account and transferred to CASP.

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