ForewordThe seventy-fifth anniversary of the Howard Karagheusian Commemorative Corporation offers the opportunity to present to our people a review of its social, medical, and educational services in the Middle East, Europe, and Armenia.
The picture of its vast field of service is given in this booklet through its history, narrated briefly by the Foundation's Directors, and as exemplified by the statistics of one year (1995). What is less tangible, yet more significant, is its mode of operation and its spirit.
The Karagheusian family has been the epitome of quiet and non-publicity seeking service. The establishment of the Foundation was a distinct expression of noble human kindness to turn a misfortune—the loss of an adolescent son—into goodness through service, such as the gathering of orphans and giving them a "Home."
This noble legacy was firmly upheld in its formative years and thereafter by Mr. and Mrs. Noubar Tavitian in their direction of the Foundation's activities in different fields and in every country where the Foundation spread its service.
After Mr. and Mrs. Mihran Karagheusian, their daughter. Miss Leila Karagheusian undertook the chief responsibility in the nineteen thirties due to Mr. Karagheusian's business demands. She proved to be the embodiment of modest, quiet, sacrificing, and attentive efforts, always mindful of the needs of her people. She worked without discrimination, with highly demanding standards, which became the hallmark of her governing bodies and her staff. The centers of the Foundation became exemplary on an international level and served as centers for training in social work. They became models and recognized by governments as such.
Thus, in a short period of time, the Karagheusian Foundation widened its enterprise for orphans, establishing preventive and treatment centers for health and nutritional provisions for needy children. It established residences in Athens, Syria, and Lebanon; organized summer and evening classes in language, typing, home economics, dressmaking, and art for children who had not been able to complete school. These courses yielded double benefits of employment and improvement of living standards of poverty stricken families. Dr. Karam Harfouche, Professor of Medicine at the American University of Beirut during the fifties wrote that the social life and health of the heavily populated lower class of Bourj Hamoud indicated a marked improvement in the quality of the life of the Armenians compared to their non-Armenian counterparts due to the services of the Karagheusian Foundation. Here it must be noted as an aside, that the Foundation has always welcomed and assisted needy non-Armenians as well as Armenians.
Today, Miss Leila Karagheusian, at an advanced age, derives a deep satisfaction from the Foundation's efforts in a new field of service. That new field is Armenia, where four dental clinics, in four different cities, including one in Artsakh, operate with state of the art equipment and with devoted and capable staff members providing needed dental care for 5-15 year old Armenian youngsters. The demand for care at the clinics is so great that it takes several months to obtain an appointment. The clinics are also utilized for in-service training of local dentists in Armenia.
Leila Karagheusian, with the grace of her more than nine decades of life, brings her attenlive presence to the administrative work and meetings of the Foundation's governing bodies, inspiring alert, enthusiastic, and caring service, without publicity. It was in this vein that characteristically she did not accede to requests for public observances of the seventy-fifth anniversary of her Foundation.
We offer this booklet, on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Howard Karagheusian Commemorative Corporation, as a memorial to the Karagheusian Family and the Karagheusian Foundation, with sincere pride, pleasure and appreciation, and to provide the Armenian people with a glimpse of what they may expect from the Howard Karagheusian Commemorative Corporation in the decades ahead.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
HOWARD KARAC.HEUSIAN COMMEMORATIVE CORPORATION
1996
