Samvel Karapetyan outlines his movement's priorities

Businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan on Monday issued a new message from his detention facility. The full statement is provided below.

“Dear compatriots,

The Our Way movement has set itself various priority tasks: protecting spiritual values, creating a new economy, rapidly generating numerous jobs, dynamic development of agriculture, and so on. Preserving the image of the traditional Armenian family and ensuring its well-being is central among these tasks and will definitely be resolved. There is no greater

success for a people and a state than to have many large families with all the conditions for a good life, whose children are healthy, educated, and ready to build a bright future for the country.

Unfortunately, in today's Armenia, the number of such families is extremely small, the

demographic indicators are catastrophic, and we must do everything possible to overcome this dangerous situation.

First of all, our young families must be healthy and have the opportunity to monitor both their reproductive health and overall health without bankrupting their family budget. The government must and is obliged to provide this opportunity—without any restrictions. The government must and is obliged to cover the expenses of every Armenian child born together with the parents, which will seriously stimulate birth rates.

Young families must have the opportunity to improve their housing conditions, and the state must also play a serious role here. Our young parents, when getting a job or entering a university, should benefit from various privileges. Finally, our respected elderly, our seniors, should have the opportunity to restore their health without the fear that they might become a burden on their children's family budget. No citizen of Armenia should ever be deprived of the opportunity to maintain their health due to a lack or shortage of money.

We have already had experience developing and implementing such programs on a smaller

scale. The movement is carrying out the necessary work to find fundamental programmatic solutions to all these issues and will bring them to life in the very near future.

We will do it—our way.”