“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese proverb

Welcome to edition #7 of our organization's quarterly newsletter! If you want to catch up between editions, be sure to connect on SYUN's Facebook and Instagram pages and check in at syunfund.org to see our projects, become a SYUN member or make a one time donation.

The rescue team of 22 trained by our senior instructor of the Emergency Response Training Center (ERTC) in Goris demonstrated the team's ability to deal with emergencies in real life. This happened during Azerbaijan’s latest aggressive actions around the Armenian village of Sotk. Team members are wide-awake and on the alert 24 hours a day and they acted immediately when the moment came.

The team senior instructor and the team leader evaluates the team's work as satisfactory, but training must continue to increase the team's strengths and skills.

Team members displayed exceptional teamwork during the mission. They say that volunteering on a rescue team gives them the ability to be a part of something very important. Rescuers insist on anonymity. A rescue mission is a team effort, they say, it brings the team together and proves that uniting forces can result in incredible outcomes.

Road of Life

The following works were completed  during the 1st phase of the Road of Life project:

1. According to the proposed program, the residents who were left without baby food and necessary vital materials as a result of the illegal blockade of Artsakh, were sent these necessary supplies from Armenia. The Artsakh Social Development Programs Fund distributed these items to the families in need.
2. A program to promote agriculture was implemented, a large amount of vegetable and herb seeds were supplied. These were mainly distributed to residents of Karmir Shuka, Taghavard, Verin Horatagh and other villages. The Karmir Shuka school was also provided with seeds and a sprayer in order to create an agricultural platform in the area near the school.
3. 3 motoblocks were bought and sent, which were distributed to the families of soldiers who died in the Artsakh war. The motoblocks will also serve other residents living in these villages.

Information about the implemented project is presented on the Facebook page of Artsakh Social Development Programs Fund.

This month, International Children's Day was celebrated all over the world. Meanwhile, 30,000 children in Artsakh have been deprived of their basic rights, primary necessities and general protection for more than 6 months.

SYUN is trying to ease the already long-lasting situation as much as possible by supporting our compatriots who, with diligence, do not miss any opportunity to deliver the necessary help to the children of Artsakh.

Having completed the first phase of our project, we are starting the second. This baby food and the other supplies should arrive quickly and safely.

First Aid Training and Emergency Response Training Center

In May we celebrated two years of SYUN’s first aid training project. Over this time we have trained about 1000 people all over Armenia, almost 100 of whom have been certified to teach courses to others. These citizens have not only learned many skills, but many have also implemented their training to help those in need during the disasters of last year.

This spring, 143 people from various communities of Syunik region passed the first aid first-level certification.
Among these people are students at Goris State University and Khnatsakhum's school, the employees of Goris branch of Instigate engineering company and  residents of Tegh village. During their training, participants acquired theoretical and practical life-saving skills: organized evacuation, applied medical techniques and the nuances of communicating with victims in emergency situations. Some of the courses were organized outdoors, in conditions as close as possible to reality. This gave participants the opportunity to learn and consider many additional subtleties.

We hope that you've learned about our rescue team from the success story in this edition. The team we built is another great achievement of these projects.

These are two of our most successful projects. With our partners VAL foundation we continue this work and hope to exponentially grow the number of those who can help in times of crisis.

Control Center

L1 Adaptive Control System Research

SYUN is starting the third phase of this project. L1 Adaptive Control is a novel theory for the design of robust adaptive control architectures using fast adaptation schemes.

During the previous 2  phases students supervised by scientists from Instigate Robotics or ISRC (Instigate Scientific Research Center) developed a software solution supporting on-the-fly modifications and tuning of PID algorithms. The software is paired with and controls the hardware stands.

In addition to the new software an educational curriculum with separate lessons and examples was developed and provided to SYUN.

In the new phase the development of the curriculum will be continued with sections related to the L1 control system itself instead of using PID (using PID is necessary for the first phase, in order to be able to develop the L1 controller algorithms). The goal of the project is to upgrade the existing stands from PID to L1 control system.

Agroecology Training in Karmir Shuka

Strengthening our ties with Karmir Shuka, one of Artsakh's border villages, we plan to start a new, not only interesting, but also important project. For this project we will cooperate with our good friend and partner Diana Grigoryan, the chairwoman of charity organization Ghoganj. The goal of this project is to provide Karmir Shuka's school with a DJI Mavic 3 Pro for the project-based advanced agroecology training.

DJI Mavic 3 Pro is a device that will make possible data collection for crop and environmental  monitoring.

In addition to theoretical knowledge students must learn in practice to use the device for collecting and analyzing data, detect crop abnormalities and perform intelligent adjustments to improve the quality and efficiency of the production.
Data provided by Mavic 3 also will be used for conducting surveys on mountains and fields to control ecosystems.

Fifteen years ago, Hermine Vermishyan moved to the USA like many of our compatriots, and since then she has worked at Microsoft as a software engineer. Along with having a successful career Hermine raised two sons. One of them graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder this year with a double bachelor's degree in physics and computational mathematics. The younger one is still studying at the University of Washington in Seattle and is going to become a mathematician.

The war of 2020 had a very heavy impact on our homeland. "Many dedicated Armenians are trying to somehow change the situation, and we must support them at least financially, even if it is a small help", - says Hermine. In reality, she is one of the strongest and most active supporters of SYUN. Last October Hermine presented SYUN as one of 5 nonprofit organizations in an event dedicated to charities, helping extend SYUN's visibility.

Hermine is a true inspiration, and we are lucky to have her in our community.

Over the past year and a half, SYUN has managed to accomplish several tasks. It may seem to some that there are no positive changes in Armenia, but due to patience and diligent work, we can now see concrete results which affect the situation on the ground. In order to achieve more significant changes, daily work needs to continue in this vein. The more people that are involved in this movement the more noticeable the progress will be. There are different ways each of us can contribute:

1. Become a SYUN member on syunfund.org, monthly membership options range from 10 to 2000 dollars. (This is the preferred method because it helps us to plan ahead)
2. Subscribe for a monthly donation in your company's donation matching site (SYUN is registered in Benevity, Bright Funds, Schwab Charitable, Fidelity, ETrade, Broadcom and Cisco). If you cannot find SYUN in your company's system, please let us know.
3. Make one time donation to the project of your choice.
4. Donate through Paypal to info@syunfund.org
5. Donate through Facebook
6. Follow SYUN on Facebook and Instagram, share and like our posts.