In the coming peak tourism months, once again Armenia will be awash in a sea of tourists. Within the thousands that will visit short-term, tour, and return home wanting more, there will be a group pursuing a unique and different mission. It will be comprised of fifteen energized and pioneering young diasporan volunteers from all walks of life, who are committing their summers to community service work in the northern regional hub of Gyumri.
Educators, IT specialists, ESL instructors, and non-profit managers are some of the specialties amongst these volunteers, all of whom are eager to see what summer life in the outer regions of Armenia is really like. Along with their placements outside of the capital city of Yerevan, they specifically asked Birthright Armenia staff for homestay living arrangements with local host families to go along with them. No doubt, they will be experiencing the ultimate immersion experience.
Ryan Weber, a 30-year-old facilities manager at Northwestern Medical Center in Milwaukee, WI, will be volunteering this summer through the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC), teaching English as a second language. The motivation behind Ryan?s three-month volunteer stint in Gyumri is genuine: he wants to improve his language skills so that someday when he has children of his own, they will speak Armenian. ?Thus, there will never be a question of who they are and where they come from? says Weber. After his first trip to Armenia in 2005 with a Habitat for Humanity build, he realized how disconnected from the Homeland he was, and this realization drove home the necessity to do something to reconnect himself. He adds, ?It is my hope that through volunteering in Armenia I will connect much closer with the Homeland, and thereby be part of a new chapter in the history of the nation?.
In 2007, Birthright Armenia decided to expand its operations beyond Yerevan and provide support services to Gyumri-based volunteers. As such, in addition to their homestay arrangements, the organization will arrange for Armenian language instruction, weekly educational forums, social tie-in events with local youth groups, and weekly excursions. It is a package of support, to ensure that their stays are as fulfilling, educational and personally meaningful as possible.
Running operations out of its Yerevan office for the past three years, Birthright Armenia has recently changed its eligibility criteria to get the volunteer resources where and when they are needed most. Since the outlying regions of Armenia are still facing greater development challenges compared to the capital, the organization shifted the travel fellowship incentive to attract more volunteers to carry out their community service outside of Yerevan during the summer months.
Armenian speaking volunteer Sevana Naaman, 24, from California, who is currently enrolled in a Masters program in Social Work at the University of Southern California, is another volunteer spending the majority of her summer in Armenia. She was drawn to the idea of working in a smaller community outside of Yerevan, and chose to work at Pyunic Armenian Association for Disabled in Gyumri. There, she will meet Katie Riley, 29 from Washington, DC, who is putting her seven years of professional web and graphic design knowledge to good use at the up-and-coming Gyumri IT Center.
Each volunteer comes to Armenia with different goals and motivations, but all primarily converge around the ideal of living in and experiencing the Homeland in a way only long term volunteers can. Ryan, Sevana, Katie and the other Gyumri volunteers don?t know each other yet. However, after spending the next few months together there, they will form bonds that will last a lifetime.
Birthright Armenia?s mission is to strengthen ties between the homeland and diasporan youth by affording them an opportunity to be a part of Armenia?s daily life and to contribute to Armenia?s development through work, study and volunteer experiences, while developing a renewed sense of Armenian identity. |
BIRTHRIGHT ARMENIAContact: Linda Yepoyan
Phone: 610-642-6633 (in the US)
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.birthrightarmenia.org
May 30, 2007
Phone: 610-642-6633 (in the US)
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.birthrightarmenia.org
May 30, 2007
Photos:
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| Volunteer Elyssa Karanian is met upon her arrival in Gyumri with a warm welcome from her homestay family, the Akimyans. |
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| Anoush Tatevossian, executive director of the Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC), introduces volunteer Katie Riley, a graphic designer and web designer, to her new job placement supervisor, Narine Petrosyan, who directs the Gyumri IT Center. |
