Organization: Development Centre Mush

Location: Gyumri, Armenia

Year: 2013

After big earthquake that hit Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri in 1988, the construction of new blocks of prefabricated houses for the affected people by the earthquake started. When the Soviet Union fell, the construction was stopped and few kilometers away from the town there are remnants (still used by the people) of those blocks in a catastrophic state: lack of waste disposal, no public transport and no street lighting.

The activists from the development center Mush involved the residents of these houses into negotiations with the local authorities and already managed to introduce public transport (“marshrutkas”) to neighborhoods Sheram, Ashotsq and Shirakatsi. The containers for waste were placed there and the surrounding area has been cleaned from the accumulating waste.