It’s good that there are people who decide to buy $6mn worth of rice, tomato, soft drink, and to distribute to people before the New Year. But more important are people who create—with that $6 million—centers such as this SMART Center. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Saturday stated this during his visit to the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) charitable foundation’s SMART center in Lori Province.

In his words, in Armenia, rice and soft drinks are usually distributed as gifts in order to get something back, whereas such centers help children to believe in themselves.

“This is the difference between the two models,” Pashinyan added. “One model puts a person into dependence on a pseudo or real leader, whereas the second model gives freedom to act, to create.

“We want a person [in Armenia] to earn his ‘soft drink’ with his dignified work, and to pay a ‘soft drink’ to the state budget as a tax.”