"Peace Exhibition" at AAA Yerevan Office

On the 8th of July the AAA Yerevan Office in the frameworks of the AAA Youth Club hosted a "Peace Art" Exhibition, which showcased artworks by local young artists.

The exhibition was initiated by a YC member Gohar Mkoyan in frameworks of “Youth Leaders for Peace” project. The project is a part of CMI (Crisis Management Initiative), “The European Partnership for the Peaceful Settlement of the Conflict over Nagorno Karabakh” (EPNK) which was launched in November of last year.
EPNK is a partnership of European NGOs working to enact initiatives which will cumulatively contribute to the peaceful settlement over Nagorno Karabakh.

Live classical music was also played by local young musicians.

The AAA SIP interns Tatevik Babayan and Angela Babayan also attended the event. They enjoyed live classical music and the interesting youth artworks, which were also on the topics of peace and understanding.

Interns meet with HENQ

Yesterday, on the 22nd of June, the interns participated at a presentation by Henq, a youth organization. The presentation, entitled "The Virtual Citizen", was about civil awareness and how citizen activity can be expressed and developed in the virtual world. It raised a friendly debate among the youth and some adults present at the meeting, since the adults didn't really approve the idea of using the internet for engaging civilians in public awareness. The interns shared their ideas about the topic and got engaged in the debate.
After the presentation, HENQ presented their vision and mission.
Since the interns found the meeting with Henq very interesting and useful, we came to a mutual agreement to hold another meeting with HENQ in the near future.

In the caption below- interns Aram Kavoukjian and Diana Oganesyan with the HENQ team.

Past and Present Interns Meet

Yesterday two interns from the Internship Programs in 2008 and 2009 had a visit to AAA Yerevan Office. They were Zaven Sargsian from the 2008 Internship Program and Sarkis Karapetyan from the 2009 Internship Program. Zaven, who is from Utah, was visiting Armenia for summer and Sarkis, who is also from Utah, now lives here with his fiancee. They shared their experiences and impressions as interns with the current AAA interns in Armenia. The meeting was really fun and motivating. Their discussed topics ranged from politics to the World Cup Championships.

Below is a picture taken at the AAA Yerevan Office during the meeting.

 (from left to right: Zaven Sargsian, Sarkis Karapetyan, Vram Karakeshishyants, Armina Darbinian, Aram Bedrosian) 

First Meetings

Today, early in the morning, Anush Petrosyan arrived.
"From the day I left my country I wanted to go back and live there again. With this internship I hope to gain more insight about my country and have another chance to self-actualize myself as a human being. I was very young, when I came from Armenia and didn't apprehend the importance of my country. Now, I have come to a critical time to choose a path in life. To be able to do this, I need to go back to my roots and have an enriching experience about political, economic, cultural, foreign affairs of Armenia."

Around 10 am in the morning Aram and Diana were at the Yerevan Office, both formally dressed, for their first day of internship at the Armenian Development Agency. They had a brief conversation with country director Armina Darbinian at the AAA office then left for the Armenian Development Agency for their instructions.
Below is a photo of Diana and Aram with Armina Darbinian at AAA Yerevan Office.

At the Armenian Development Agency they met with ADA director Robert Harutyunyan.

 (from left to right: Diana Oganesyan, Aram Kavoukjian, Robert Harutyunyan, Armina Darbinian)

Also, they all went to ACNIS, where they participated in a discussion and met with Richard Giragossian, the head of ACNIS.

(from left to right: Richard Giragossian, Aram Bedrosian, Armina Darbinian, Diana Ogensyan, Aram Kavoukjian)

Aram is to do his internship at ACNIS (Armenian Center for National and International Studies). So he received instructions from Richard Giragossian. 

Aram Bedrosian, Diana Oganesyan, Aram Kavoukjian arrive

On Sunday, around 6 AM the airplane which carried Aram Bedrosian, landed at Zvartnots Airport, Yerevan. Five minutes before boarding Aram wrote in his Facebook page "Boarding in 5min". Yep, Aram was counting the days, the hours and the minutes till his arrival to Armenia... "7 days" "5 days" "ready set hayastan!" :)Now he is here.
Diana Oganesyan and Aram Kavoukjian arrived this morning. Now they are probably asleep in their rooms, or maybe awake... who knows. But they're here, at home.:)
Both, according to their FB statuses, are very excited.
Diana had previously written in her essay "I have been dreaming of a summer as an intern in Armenia for as long as I could remember. Many roadblocks have emerged each summer, such as no passport, and age limits. All obstacles have been lifted this year..."
And Aram..."During my last visit to Armenia, summer of 2008, we visited an Armenian day care for underprivileged children and the elderly named Orran. Here after spending a few hours with some of the kids we were making a collage with, hearing their stories and seeing these kids very happy was one of the best parts of my visit to Armenia. That day was one of the first days that I can truly say I volunteered my time to help out my Armenian brothers and sisters, and I enjoyed every part of it. After that experience at Orran I was trying to find another opportunity to go back to Armenia and work as a volunteer or an intern for my homeland."

Me and Katia are very excited to meet them this afternoon.
I will later send them co-author invitations so that they themselves can write about their arrivals, their anticipations and thoughts.