For Garik Mikayelyan, a pool is not just water. Swimming without arms, he cuts through the water to clock an astonishing 50 meters in just 48 seconds, a feat that recently earned him the title of absolute champion at the Armenian Para-Swimming Championship. What began at Zinvori Tun (Soldier’s Home) as basic hydrotherapy to heal the wounds of war has evolved into international athletic ambition. Today, Garik is training to represent Armenia on the global Paralympic stage, yet another example of what can happen when we refuse to let our heroes’ journeys end on the battlefield.
It is such stories of small and big victories like Garik’s that defined the atmosphere on the evening of June 4, when the courtyard and halls of Zinvori Tun were filled with conversation and a profound, collective sense of purpose. Organized in partnership with the fundraising initiative Ayo! (a program of the Fund for Armenian Relief), An Evening with Our Heroes brought together a dedicated community of local and international donors for a firsthand look inside Armenia’s premier rehabilitation facility.
The gathering was a beautiful time where past victories and future promises all came together. Over its eight years of operation, Zinvori Tun has proven many times that it’s not just an important medical institution but a vital place for both physical and psychological recovery, lifelong friendships, and stories worth writing about. According to facility coordinators, the center’s work has touched the lives of roughly 10,000 wounded soldiers and has guided them through the transition from acute, devastating-seeming injury to a new life purpose.
In this facility, our heroes don’t just receive clinical care. Instead, they get psychological support, build connections, learn new professions, and secure jobs. Many go on to build families of their own. Ultimately, they do more than just survive the trauma of war and rebuild their lives; they become fathers and nurture new life.
This journey toward long-term independence is not a new focus for Ayo!. Back in 2021, in partnership with the Aznavour Foundation and Zinvori Tun (operated by the Support to Wounded Soldiers NGO), Ayo! launched the From Frontlines to Storefronts initiative. The project directly addressed a critical need: following the 2020 44-day war, the number of wounded and disabled veterans in Armenia surged past 9,000. Faced with overwhelming obstacles to community reintegration, including an inaccessible built environment, a lack of professional skills, and a sudden inability to earn a sustainable income, these veterans needed a meaningful way to reroute and rebuild.
To expand the center’s ongoing vocational and employment assistance, Ayo! partnered with the Aznavour Foundation, an organization with a deep legacy of Armenian relief work dating back to the legendary Charles Aznavour’s response to the 1988 earthquake. While the Foundation committed an initial $10,000 to promote veteran entrepreneurship, Ayo! stepped in to raise an additional $30,000. This expanded financing pool encouraged wounded veterans to submit their own entrepreneurial ideas for a chance to receive up to 5,000 EUR (~$6,000) in seed funding. Rather than just offering a one-time payout, the initiative was built for long-term sustainability, pairing financial support with specialized training, ongoing mentorship, and professional consultations to turn raw business concepts into successful civilian ventures.
A living testament to the power of these initiatives was present at the event itself. Mesrop, the talented photographer capturing the evening’s moments, is a beneficiary of this very small grant program. Though his specific grant came through the broader collaborative efforts at the center rather than directly from Ayo!, the program served as the catalyst for him to completely restart his life after his injury. Through it, he mastered photography, built a career, and was subsequently hired by Zinvori Tun. Today, Mesrop is not only a professional but a family man with a wife and a daughter, embodying the exact spirit of renewal the center fosters.
An essential component of Zinvori Tun’s holistic approach is the center’s expanding adaptive sports programs. Beyond individual champions like Garik, Zinvori Tun recently celebrated the formation of its third official swim team. Supported since 2022 by the non-profit organization Veterans of Armenia, the swimming program acts as both intensive therapy and a competitive outlet. It gives our wounded young men a space to step out of their wheelchairs, remove their prosthetics, and push past what the world deems physical limitations.
The success of the center is marked on paper as well. Zinvori Tun’s laboratory has officially earned ISO 9001:2015 Certification from the prestigious German auditing body TÜV Rheinland. This is fantastic, to say the least. It formally places the center’s diagnostics on par with international protocols and proves that its quality controls meet strict global benchmarks.
During the event, donors also had the chance to see the immediate fruits of their support and the wonderful work of the soldiers: great, high-class devices, well-equipped rooms, and art therapy sculptures made by… You guessed it right, made by our heroes themselves! But in addition to celebrating already-accomplished results, the event also served to re-energize the #NextStep campaign.
Launched well ahead of the June 4th event, the #NextStep initiative was designed to address a major long-term need: the expansion and technological upgrade of the center’s prosthetics lab. While Zinvori Tun has consistently provided high-quality limbs, global advancements require continuous capital investment.
To achieve the project’s full potential, Ayo! has set a total fundraising goal of $18,361 for the prosthetics lab expansion.
According to the latest campaign figures, the initiative has successfully raised $10,801, which represents 59% of the required goal. But $7,560 is still missing to acquire the advanced tools needed for the center. That being said, $10,801 is already quite an accomplishment, and behind this number stand people who deeply care about their homeland. The campaign is made possible through the generous donation of Marta Batmasian, which covers administrative overhead. This operational backing guarantees that 100% of all funds raised from the other donors will go directly to project implementation and purchasing the next-generation technologies required for the veterans’ custom prosthetics.
“In my opinion, this project perfectly aligns with our Ayo! ‘small budget, big impact’ philosophy. The tools that our donors fund will be used for years in order to make state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs for countless heroes. This is the very least we can do to give back to those who gave their all for our country.”
— Sarah Stites, Ayo! Program Director
The behind-the-scenes tour of Zinvori Tun concluded on the facility’s open balcony, where a diverse group of supporters mingled with the soldiers in the warm June air. For those in attendance, the evening provided a clear reminder that the road to recovery is a long-term commitment. Each contribution to the #NextStep campaign does not merely fund equipment; it directly buys back the independence and dignity of Armenia’s wounded heroes.
