Commemorating 105 years since the Armenian Genocide the ANCC partners to provide 1.6 million meals to the needy

By Beryl Wajsman

Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) is urging the Armenian-Canadian community to make donations to La Tablée des Chefs project “Les Cuisines Solidaires”– which will provide 1.6 million meals to food banks across Canada with the help of different partners, in memory of the 1.5 million innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide. 

“Yes hishum yem yev pahanjum yem – I remember and demand.” This is the  slogan of the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Movement…

On April 24th we remember the Armenian Genocide. Every year there is a remarkable outpouring of Montrealers to commemorate the Armenian Genocide. Some marches in recent years in Montreal had over 10,000 participants including representatives of some two dozen cultural communities.The photo accompanying this story show scouts carrying flags of nations that have suffered genocides and of cultural communities participating in the March. Raphael Lemkin, the brilliant international jurist who coined the word genocide and authored the basis of the Genocide Convention, called the Armenian Genocide the “first genocide of the 20th century.” Lemkin, who lost all his family in the Holocaust save his brother Elias who came to Montreal, was once asked by CBS News why he had devoted himself to codifying law on such horrors. He said one of the factors was Hitler’s statement in what has come to be known as the Obersalzberg Speech in 1939 that, “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?” It was Hitler’s argument that the extermination of the Jews will go as unnoticed and unremembered. Lemkin didn’t want anyone to forget the Armenian Genocide nor the Jewish Holocaust itself.

In light of the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, this year’s March has of course been cancelled. But Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) is urging the Armenian-Canadian community to make donations to La Tablée des Chefs project “Les Cuisines Solidaires”– which will provide 1.6 million meals to food banks across Canada with the help of different partners, in memory of the 1.5 million innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide. All donations are tax deductible and can be made online at : www.tableedeschefs.org

Hrag Tarakdjian and Shahen Mirakian, co-presidents of the ANCC issued a statement that reads, “We are proud of our partnership with this great organization and we strongly believe that as the Armenian-Canadian community is preparing to mark the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide under the current difficult circumstances, it is our duty to help our fellow Canadians who are most in need, in honour of our 1.5 million victims”

Jean-François Archambault, Managing Director and Founder of La Tablée des Chefs responded that, “We are proud to partner with the ANCC and the Armenian community across Canada, in order to mark the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Seeing the serious impacts of the crisis in our communities, we looked for a way to help people and imagine a great implication of leaders and actors of the agrifood sector. The response to our call was immediate: in less than a week, we mobilized generous public and private partners, received confirmations from chefs across the province and the support of many stakeholders in the agrifood industry!”

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