Our Work
Our medical missions are meticulously organized to ensure that we reach the most remote regions of Armenia. We collaborate with local communities, healthcare professionals, and volunteers to provide essential screening and diagnostic services to women and families in need. Through our efforts, we aim to improve access to healthcare and make a positive impact on the lives in underserved areas.
The Armenian American Wellness Center is a state-of-the-art diagnostic facility with the latest Western technology and training. It has become the champion of preventive health care in Armenia. It is exemplary for its humanitarian initiative, Western-style financial and administrative accountability, transparency and cost-effectiveness, and for providing a corruption-free workplace. It provides screening and diagnostic services to women and families of Armenia in 8 departments in Yerevan, at a Satellite Clinic in Gavar and through free of charge monthly medical missions to remote regions of the country. The Wellness Center is the humanitarian project of the Armenian American Cultural Association, Inc. (AACA), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization incorporated in the United States (U.S.) in 1995.
In addition to the main facility in Yerevan, the Wellness Center operates satellite clinic in Gavar designed to provide health care services to Armenians who cannot afford travel to the main center in Yerevan.
The satellite clinic is a ten-room medical facility in the city of Gavar, 60 miles northeast of the capital city of Yerevan, where the rate of breast abnormalities is among the highest in the country. The building that houses the Gavar Clinic was extensively renovated prior to its opening in July 2003 and is now home to a modern health care facility, providing preventive screening to women, as well as family-centered primary health care services.
In July 2003, AACA established a Satellite Clinic in the town of Gavar (60 miles northeast of Yerevan in the Lake Sevan Region) to address the exorbitant rate of breast abnormalities there – among the highest in the country – targeting a remote and under-served population of over 200,000 people.
To provide essential services to those who could not afford travel to the main Center in Yerevan, an old 2-room garden house was extensively renovated and transformed into a 10-room modern health care facility. Earlier in 2003, AACA had invited a doctor (internist) from Gavar to do her US training in Family Medicine with Dr. Vicken Poochikian of Washington, DC – who also traveled to Armenia to establish (in addition to breast imaging and basic gynecology) the Clinic’s Family Medicine practice.
In September 2005, working closely with Salpy Akaragian, RN, MN, FIAN, of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the Wellness Center launched Health Fairs for
Healthy Lifestyles at the Gavar Satellite Clinic for the population of the Lake Sevan Region – providing free check-ups, ultrasound screenings and referrals to all members of the family.
The Wellness Center staff use portable medical equipment to screen women for breast and cervical cancers as well as conduct general examination, Sonography, and bone density tests. They also distribute literature stressing the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices. Patients with severe abnormalities are referred to the main Center in Yerevan for further diagnosis.
This Soviet-era five-story dilapidated building was donated by the Armenian Government to the Wellness Center. In 2002, in recognition of the impact that the Wellness Center had already made on women’s health care in the country, the Armenian Government, through a Special Presidential decree, donated to the Armenian American Wellness Center “Foundation” the entire building on the first floor of which the Wellness Center was operating.
The architectural plans were conceived and coordinated by two architects, the late Vartkess Balian (a well-known architect & builder in the DC Metro area) and Osep Sarafian (a retired architect from Detroit-based Yamasaki Group) in consultation with architectural, structural and seismic reinforcement companies in the U.S. and Armenia.
Reinforcement Work of the Building
The Wellness Center’s old Soviet-era building was completely overhauled, starting from its foundation, all the way to its roof. All of its columns were reinforced using California seismic methods, exterior and interior walls were demolished and replaced with new outside tuff stone walls and interior dry walls. Floor slabs were reinforced with cast iron and new concrete was poured on each floor to convert it into a monolithic structure for it to stand against earthquakes. Column reinforcement works were done through TYFO fiber wrap application by FYFE Co, LLC of California. The building went through extensive reconstruction, expansion, seismic reinforcement and renovation. The result is a six floor modern state-of-the-art facility based on Western architectural norms.
Ecologically Clean & Renewable Energy
The Wellness Center has installed a Solar Roof Integrated PV System that is generating 10kW of clean renewable energy.
Furthermore, the Center utilizes ecologically clean and renewable energy from an onsite power station combining solar energy with an innovative system known as Combined Heat and Power (CHP). This provides the Center with a reliable and economical source of 120KW energy. Of this, 10KW of photovoltaic (PV) power is utilized as part of a grid-connected system and will eventually be shared with the Yerevan municipality after working hours – a first in the entire former Soviet Union.
Explore all the ways the AAWC is shaping Health Care access for the Armenian community.
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Join our online community:
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Volunteer at one of our many Armenian Cultural Events.
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Your generous donations make a huge impact.
Learn all about how to get involved with the AACA and it’s campaigns in both Armenia and the United States.
Every donation counts!
Together we can make Armenia a Healthier Nation.
“God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.”
– Rudyard Kipling
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