Where This All Began…


We (Emma Pearson and Laura Ferent) met in July 2005 during the first International Women Build held outside the US. Our build took place in the tiny village of Aghavandzor in mountainous Southern Armenia. The picture here shows our Women Build team. Emma is in the back row on the right, wearing the blue hat, and Laura is in the front row on the far left with the white t-shirt.
The women you see are a couple of international team volunteers (sponsored by Whirlpool), some Peace Corps volunteers working in Armenia at the time, local Armenian volunteers, and local village women. The woman in red in the middle is Gohar, for whom we were building the house you see in the background. Gohar, her husband Hovhannes, and their two children, Artur (then 12) and Gayane (then 9), moved into their house in Spring 2006. They had been living in a small metal container not much longer than Emma & Mike’s kitchen, provided after the horrific Armenian Earthquake of December 1988. Their young children had never had the experience of living in a house.
Next year our plan is to build a home, and hope, for a family in Kyrgyzstan.
In support of the build, Emma took part in a long trail run/walk around part of the Mont Blanc with her husband, Mike (it was 86km, or over 50 miles in length, with 4,500m climb). They finished it in 18h38min (see the link on the right to learn more about the Trail). More than $6,000 have been donated to date by Emma's friends and colleagues! This is FABULOUS! This is well on the way to reaching our goal of sponsoring a full Habitat house in Kyrgyzstan ($7,900 is all it costs). Many thanks to all of our supporters for your amazing generosity!