MLK’s niece bonds with child victims of violence in Armenia

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Wednesday, October 01, 2025With the help of a translator, Alveda King (middle) speaks with children at the Community and Family nonprofit therapy center in Metsamor, Armenia, on Sept. 25, 2025. | Save ArmeniaMETSAMOR, Armenia — As the niece of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., evangelist, gospel singer and pro-life advocate Alveda King has long developed a reputation for sharing the joy and love of Christ with almost everyone she comes into contact with.Whether it’s breaking out in song during government meetings or sharing links to her YouTube page with those she meets, she is not afraid to let others know what God has done in her life. But life has not always been hunky dory. Her uncle was infamously gunned down at a hotel when she was 17 in 1968, and her father, A.D. King, drowned a year later when she was 18. Her grandmother, Alberta Williams King, was shot and killed while playing the organ at church a few years later in 1974.But for Alveda King, it was art that helped her process grief as a teenager and young adult to become the joyful woman she is today. And last Thursday, that was the message she shared with young kindred spirits over 6,000 miles away from her home in the Caucasus country of Armenia, who are also learning to use art as a means to process the pain in their lives.These children are among the hundreds being aided by the Christ-centered nonprofit art therapy and support center Community and Family NGO in the town of Metsamor, about a 30-minute drive outside Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan.Some of those children have faced unending trauma fleeing from Azerbaijan’s 2023 ethnic cleansing of their ancient Christian homeland, known affectionately by natives as Artsakh, a predominantly Armenian, formerly autonomous region within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan known to others as Nagorno-Karabakh.Other children who are local to the town are in the process of overcoming various tragedies, domestic violence and family issues brought on by the extremely high rate of poverty in their provinces.‘Let the light of God shine’Visiting an art class, King presented a drawing she made to represent paintings she created when she was younger, saying that when she was a “little girl, many bad things happened in my life.”“This was the sunshine, let the light of God shine. This was big mountains that I wish I could run away and climb,” King said of the drawing with the help of a translator. “I would draw the trees and the animals, and I still wanted to love everybody,” she added. “This is a picture I used to paint. I am going to give it to your teacher. Then, I want to see all of your beautiful art.”Alveda King presented this drawing to children and their teacher in Metsamor, Armenia on Sept. 25, 2025. | Save Armenia“I love you,” she continued as she led the children in making a heart gesture with their hands. “Can I see [your] pictures now?”Through a translator, she also led four classes in singing the American children’s Christian song “This Little Light of Mine,” bringing smiles to the children’s faces through the universal language of love and friendship.King, who serves in the Trump administration as a senior advisor for Faith and Community Outreach for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was part of a delegation of around a dozen individuals representing primarily U.S.-based Christian advocacy groups, media companies and policy groups organized by the nonprofit Save Armenia. The group exists to foster awareness and action among the global Christian community in the wake of neighboring Azerbaijan’s takeover of Artsakh.In a matter of days in September 2023, over 120,000 people were forced from their homes. They were kicked out of homelands that are vestiges of the first-ever kingdom to declare itself a Christian nation in 300 A.D. and are filled with ancient and irreplaceable churches and Christian artifacts that are at risk of total erasure while the world largely remains silent.In addition to those who fled, many were brutally murdered, sometimes in front of their children. Twenty-three residents of Artsakh are being held hostage in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku.‘The base of our mission’Family and Community NGO offers holistic support, not just for the children, but for the families and communities impacted by chronic poverty, providing social work, psychological therapy, and art therapy (such as painting, puppeteering, singing and dancing). The organization operates three centers and serves up to 400 children each year. They also serve about 60 families who fled from Artsakh, minority children from the Yazidi community and children with disabilities.Students work on paintings at the Community and Family nonprofit therapy center in Metsamor, Armenia, on Sept. 25, 2025. | The Christian PostFaith and Community NGO has three locations — two in Armavir and one in Shirak, the most impoverished provinces in the country, where one in three children are not receiving an education, according to Knarik Garafilyan, a director who oversees those centers.“It’s been more than 23 years [this organization] has been working in this area by the big support of [an] archbishop,” Garafilyan said through a translator. “The principles and the values that the United States of America are founded on are the same values that we hold dearly. Those are the same values and beliefs that we use in our center with our children and their families.”“The base of our mission and the purpose of being here and working with the families and children is really the Christian faith. Christian values, plus moral values, are the big, big reasons we are here.”With Christian values at the center, Garafilyan said the organization believes it can “change, develop and make a new level of living” in the lives of these families, some of whom have faced intergenerational trauma.“Christian values are forever,” she asserted. “In this chaotic world that we are living in, the only thing that stays forever are the Christian values. These values are guiding us to help needy families, which have many problems.”“We are not just supporting them by providing food, clothing and stuff like that,” she stated. “It’s out of that we are helping them to get opportunities to get better education.”King said that through art therapy, children often show signs of improvement in their art. When children begin the therapy, they start by creating dark colors and images that express their pain. But as therapy progresses, their art becomes more colorful, uplifting and vibrant — a representation of peace in their hearts.‘Brave boy’Garafilyan shared two of the organization’s “dearest” success stories in a meeting with the delegation. One boy fled during the war with Azerbaijan in 2022. His mother had been captured and dismembered by Azeri forces.“His first painting, he was talking about ‘Where is my mom? She is not answering her phone.’ Gradually, we had the talk, and we explained,” she said. “It’s been more than three years. In October, it will be three years. Now he is a happy, realistic, brave boy. Now he says: ‘My mother is gone because she wanted us to live and have a better life. When I grow up, I am going to be a soldier, and I am going to keep my country safe. I want all of you to know, I hate war.’”Another child identified by the center’s director is a 7-year-old boy displaced from Artsakh with his family.“When they moved to Armenia, his drawing showed how they displaced them with a car and their belongings. Now, they are living in a building near our center. It’s dark and black,” Garafilyan said of his initial artwork. “But gradually, this is his house. The flag, family, he has a sister now. He says they are happy. He is an artist now.”