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• Heart Art: Yerevan policeman takes “conscience examination” to help disabled

If I am not mistaken many policemen in Armenia have graduated from Pedagogical University and since work in police pays more than teaching, many opted for that. Why don't all policemen who are qualified as teachers do some teaching? and may be even get some benefit /compensation for it? ...

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When he goes to the Shogh (“ray of light”) Art Studio he is a short distance but a world away from the central Yerevan police precinct where he interviews crime victims, as a special investigator.

Since 2002, Harutiunyan has been teaching art to the disabled at a studio he founded in a room provided by the Armenian Evangelical Church on the outskirts of Yerevan.

Each Saturday the policeman discards his uniform for civilian appearances among his class of 10 or more students who do not even know that he is a police officer. To them, he is “Comrade Ara”. (Throughout Armenia, teachers are still commonly addressed as they were in soviet times.)

Harutiunyan, 45, graduated from Yerevan State Pedagogical University, where he studied directing, and art. He worked in television as a director and animator.

In the early 1990s he was called by the State Police and asked to produce a sketch of a criminal suspect, based on witness account. After that he was invited to join the force as a sketch artist/investigator.

“I dealt a lot with people who suffered, and I saw the problems they faced,” Harutiunyan says. “One day I thought about what I could do to help anyone in Armenia who suffered for any reason, besides painting the face of a criminal who did them harm.

“In those years, there were many disabled people who suffered from the war and earthquake, and I decided to help them somehow.”

At first, he helped one of his disabled friends organize a choir. Then he decided to create an art school for those who were physically disabled. His students range in age from 14-52, and their disabilities include epilepsy and cerebral palsy (CP).

Harutiunyan does not expect masterpieces from his students, but he wants them to feel like masters, in a society where at best they are treated with pity, and at worst, shunned.

“It is thanks to Comrade Ara that I manage to express my sorrow and happiness through colors in my paintings,” says 39-year old Monica Sahakian, who has been wheel-chair bound since childhood with CP. “My happiness is white, red, blue, yellow, and green; and my sorrow is black. But my black always has some bright tints.”

Lyudmila Avagian, 55, brings her 22-year-old son, Martin, who suffers from epilepsy, to the art studio.

“Somehow, dealing with reasons why crimes are committed, he still manages to understand the human soul,” she says of the policeman/artist.

Harutiunyan also encourages participation of non-disabled students, with the aim of creating integration. His 12-year old daughter and 10-year old son attend the class and his wife, Tamara Harutiunyan, 33, helps him organize the studio work.

“I work for my conscience,” Harutiunyan says. “Every time I enter this room, I take a conscience exam. These students help me get rid of the negative energy gathered during a working day.”