They call it “home.” And for many of Mer Doon’s 16 female residents, the two-storey, beige-stone building in the Armenian town of Etchmiadzin is truly the only home they’ve ever known.

The sole facility of its kind in Armenia, Mer Doon (Our Home) is a non-profit organization that accommodates women and girls from orphanages and low-income boarding housesthroughout the country. They live at Mer Doon for four years while pursuing an education in Echmiadzin or the capital, Yerevan, about a half-hour’s drive away.

But this building is not just about accommodation. Rather, it’s about trying to provide some of society’s most economically vulnerable members with an environment that prepares them for an independent life.

Without family or financial support, female orphans and economically disadvantaged young women run a strong risk of being trafficked once they turn 18 and leave Armenia’s child-welfare institutions, believes Mer Doon’s director, 53-year-old Tigranuhi Karapetyan.

Karapetyan, who formerly worked for the Children of Armenia Sponsorship Program (CASP), an anti-poverty initiative linked to the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, says she co-founded the residence 12 years ago because “the girls must feel what it really means to have a family.”

“I was thinking of somehow helping them. It is not their fault that they were left by their parents, and we had to do something, to prevent them from making fatal mistakes; particularly at that age,” she says.