More than 150 children of Armenia residents, who have migrated to Istanbul, Turkey, attend the underground school that functions at the Armenian Evangelical Church in the Gedikpaşa neighborhood. 

The school’s cofounder and principal Heriknaz Avagyan told the aforesaid to Armenian News.

“The school conditions have improved,” Avagyan said. “Today, the children can attend both the kindergarten and the school. (…) Numerous people from Armenia prefer enrolling their children in our school, since the studies [here] are conducted with Armenia’s [education] programs, and most [of these] Armenians [from Armenia] aim to return to Armenia.”

The school was founded in 2003, and the local Armenian community as well as the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople provide great support to this place of learning.

In Heriknaz Avagyan’s words, however, the funding for this school remains a challenge for them. Unlike Istanbul’s legally operating Armenian schools, which frequently organize fundraisers for their maintenance, no one goes to this underground school.

“We can’t organize fundraisers,” Avagyan added. “We are forced to resolve the matter through our means, with the help of kind people as well as the payment by the parents of the children attending the school.”

But Heriknaz Avagyan informed with pleasure that some of their pupils have returned to Armenia, and this year they are getting ready to be accepted in the higher education institutions of the country.