Armenian Assembly of America organizes visit of Diasporan
Armenian regular student group to Armenia
24-07-2009 14:50:00 | Armenia | Social
YEREVAN, JULY 24, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. In 1988
the Armenian Assembly of America, which is one of the biggest
NGOs of American Armenians, came up with an initiative of
sending American Armenian students to Armenia. The first
students came to Armenia by that project called Summer Student
Program in 1989. From 8 to 10 students usually come to Armenia
every year. AAA assumes part of program's financing and the
other expenses are covered by students. Students spend 2 months
in Armenia and can live with their relatives or stay at any
Armenian family chosen by AAA or can rent an apartment.
A group consisting of 8 students also came in 2009.
"Students come not for changing Armenia but for Armenia to
change them," Arpi Vardanian, the Director of AAA Armenian and
NKR Offices, said. In her time she was among the persons
preparing this program.
Students - members of the group work 5 days a week and over
the weekends see Armenia's sights, organize meetings with
officials, celebrities. According to Mrs Vardanian implementing
the program, they try to choose as interesting job for students
as possible: they often work at two places and spend their
leisure as they like. Besides office work, students as
volunteers assist NGOs functioning in Armenian villages. As most
of the students do not know Armenian or speak Western Armenian,
they also attend Armenian language courses. Mrs Vardanian said
while presenting the goals of implementing the program:
"Students come to Armenia to be able to get acquainted with
themselves better, to know who they are as persons, to imagine
and understand what is Armenia, what challenges this country
faces, how the Armenians live, what problems they have. I do
not want them to continue living by only hearing others' opinion
of Armenia. Besides, coming to Armenia they change, grow mature,
become more independent. That work is very important for them to
understand that Armenia has grown very much but in many things
differs and even lags behind other countries: there can be a
problem of lack of equipment necessary for work, a problem with
computers or the electricity can be cut off. Students come here
and begin to understand how difficult it is to work under the
conditions and to succeed. Therefore any little success should
be encouraged," Arpi Vardanian said.
Sofi Mnjoyan is among the participants of this year's
summer program. She learnt of this program from last year's
participants. "Formerly I came to Armenia as a tourist for a
week or two but I wanted to somehow improve country's condition,
to work here, to find out whether I can get accustomed to life
here, to see not "tourist" but real life." Sofi plans to return
to Armenia after finishing her studies, in 4-5 years and to work
here. She is a pharmacist by speciality. She works here at AAA
Yerevan Office and drugstore, both voluntarily. As Sofi was born
and for some time lived in Armenia, she was more or less
acquainted with the country. And what about the others? Sofi
says that the other members of the group "were not disappointed
very much." And adds: "They expected less from Armenia, they
expected to see that there is no water, no electricity: they
found Armenia in a better condition than had expected. Yerevan
is rather europeanized, especially the center. They were only
disappointed with the relations between a woman and a man. We
speak much that women and men are not in an equal condition in
Armenia, no woman sits on the front seat of a mircobus or taxi,
coffee should be made by a woman without fail, washing up the
plates is also only woman's business: they are not used to such
things in the U.S. We also did not like the fact of deceiving us
in shops or on the market: from the manner of speaking or
clothes they understand that we are foreigners and try to sell
to us for 3000 drams foodstuffs costing 300 drams. As to the
rest things, we are content with them," Sofi Mnjoyan said.
Students try to see Armenia with new eyes. They like the
fact that there are many department stores and in this respect
Armenia is like America and European countries. They like it
that education quality is higher here: even people having no
higher education have idea about everything: "People in America
are not interested in such things: few know where is Armenia,
there are even people who don't know the place of such big
states as India," Sofi says.
Commenting upon some American Armenians' opinion that
Armenia is not a place to live she said that in some issues,
certainly, it does not correspond to American standards, but not
all American Armenians are of this opinion. Sofi herself knows
many American Armenians, who have left their comfortable life in
America and have moved here. However, in this case she attaches
importance to other problems: "When we met the Deputy Mayor, we
asked him whether Armenia is ready to receive Diasporan
Armenians. It is known that there are many people here who
graduate from a university but fail to find a job. He answered
that now Armenia is really not ready for Diasporan Armenians'
return: it will take 5 or 6 years for the situation in Armenia
to be improved, to be more or less brought closer to American or
European standards. It is also important whether a person can
get accustomed to the conditions here when you even do not know
if the law will protect you or not."
"If people are ready to accept Armenia the way it is
without trying to artificially find a similarity between it and
U.S. or European countries, they can come here," Arpi Vardanian
expressed her opinion over this subject at the end.