Community Connections

CYSCA Archives for 2003

In November and December, the CYSCA Community Connections Program (CC) began to implement its seventh annual grant from the U. S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, hosting a delegation of ten public health doctors from Armenia (see article at left). Since 1997 under the CC grant program, CYSCA has been hosting two to three groups of ten professionals from Armenia annually. After this successful visit, the CYSCA CC staff is now very busy organizing for the next delegation: a business group which will visit from April 18-May 14. This means planning internships, training, educational and cultural activities as well as recruiting volunteer host families to provide meals and lodging for the guests from Armenia and to give them a cultural experience in USA home life. There will also be several receptions and public programs.

The upcoming group will speak English, and like other previous groups has been recruited in an open competition by the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) office staff in Yerevan. CYSCA Program Director Jack Medzorian points out that "...our programs for the 105 CC participants to date, plus our follow-on projects have benefited over 2,000 professionals in Armenia and countless more here at home. We believe the CC program has definite mutual benefits for our local community as well as the participants from Armenia. It has been a rewarding experience for all of us and well worth the investment of our energy and resources."

Equally as important as the training the professionals get here in the USA are the follow-on activities in Armenia conducted jointly with the CC alumni and CYSCA. Each CC group has organized meaningful projects over the years to spread the knowledge and experience they gained with others in Armenia. Since 1998 there have been 16 successful joint follow-on projects carried out in Armenia by the CYSCA CC alumni. (See accompanying articles.)

The present CYSCA CC Committee is headed by Program Director Jack Medzorian, Program Manager Ara Ghazarians, Program Administrator Taya Battelle and committee members at large, Sarkis Gennetian, Vartkes Karaian, Varujan Masrof, George Changelian, and Jirair Babikyan. The committee needs host families and other volunteers to help provide community outreach and logistics support. Please contact Ara Ghazarians at 781-646-3090 or Taya Battelle at 617-277-9548 if you would like to participate in this program.

As this article goes to press, the CYSCA Community Connections Program (CC) is forging ahead with its sixth annual grant from the U. S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since 1997 under the CC grant program, CYSCA has been hosting two to three groups of ten professionals from Armenia annually. The CYSCA CC staff has been very busy organizing internships, training, educational and cultural activities as well as recruiting volunteer host families to provide meals and lodging for the guests from Armenia and to give them a cultural experience in USA home life.

The recent grant received in July 2002 involves ten entrepreneurs from Yerevan, who are scheduled to arrive in March 2003 and ten Cultural and Historical Preservation specialists from the regions of Armenia, who plan to arrive in May/June 2003. These individuals are recruited in an open competition by the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) office staff in Yerevan. CYSCA Program Director Jack Medzorian points out that "...our programs for the 85 CC participants to date, plus our follow-on projects have benefited over 2,000 professionals in Armenia and countless more here at home. We believe the CC program has definite mutual benefits for our local community as well as the participants from Armenia. It has been a rewarding experience for all of us and well worth the investment of our energy and resources."

The most recent CC groups were hosted by CYSCA in the spring of 2002. They included a group of entrepreneurs from Yerevan during March and tourism specialists from Yerevan and the regions in May. Successful programs were organized for these groups by the CC committee with the guidance of Dr. Sharyn Boornazian, who was the program manager for the entrepreneurs, while Professor Barbara Dexter- Smith of Middlesex Community College organized the academic and training program for the tourism specialists in May.

Equally as important as the training the professionals get here in the USA are the follow-on activities in Armenia conducted jointly with the CC alumni and CYSCA. Each CC group has organized meaningful projects over the years to spread the knowledge and experience they gained with others in Armenia. Since 1998 there have been 14 successful joint follow-on projects carried out in Armenia by the CYSCA CC alumni. Recent projects organized by a team headed by the March 2002 CC entrepreneurs are:

>> Production of an "Armenia Export Catalog
>> Business Conference in November 2002

Recently, the CC program enlisted the services of Dr. Ara Ghazarians to direct the activities for the 2003 program. The present CYSCA CC Committee is headed by Program Director Jack Medzorian, Program Manager Ara Ghazarians, Program Administrator Taya Battelle and committee members at large, Sarkis Gennetian, Vartkes Karaian, Varujan Masrof, George Changelian, and Jirair Babikyan. The committee needs host families and other volunteers to help provide community outreach and logistics support. Please contact Ara Ghazarians at 781-646-3090 or Taya Battelle at 617-277-9548 if you would like to participate in this program.

Cambridge,MA
A group of entrepreneurs returned to Yerevan the end of March 2002 following an intense four week visit which included professional internships and academic and cultural programs in Greater Boston, hosted by the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA). This program, called "Community Connections" (CC) was sponsored by CYSCA with funding support under a grant to CYSCA from the U. S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).

The participants were local Yerevan entrepreneurs chosen in a competitive selection process out of a field of 300 applicants. They were each assigned individual internships that matched their skills and professions for hands-on experience in a comparable field. Besides this invaluable training, they made personal and professional contacts that will help them back home. Jack Medzorian, CYSCA CC Program Director commented, "We are very pleased to have helped provide training for these up and coming entrepreneurs. We found them to be intelligent individuals, serious about their goals, and eager to learn as much as possible about business practices in our free and open market economy that they can replicate in Armenia. We are immensely grateful to the numerous volunteers who helped us realize this program." The internship and academic program for the entrepreneurs was organized by CYSCA'S CC project director, Dr. Sharyn Boornazian.

Vilen Manvelyan, pharmacist, commented on his internships, "I learned the importance of the use of the computer to control pharmacy operations, which I will implement in my business". Davit Nerssisyan, advertising manager, said, "Now, I realize how important it it is that the message in my ads be kept simple". Aram Navarsadyan, business consultant, observed, "there is a lack of comprehensive information in the USA about business opportunities in Armenia and I plan to do something about that". Armen Aharonyan, dentist, noted, "I got ideas about the dental hygienist, the use of multiple dental chairs to improve productivity, and periodontal techniques that I can utilize in my practice". Margar Makhsudyan, electronics engineer, said, " I now will shift my plans from telephone repairs to computer repairs, a far more productive future for my business". Nunik Margaryan, marketing manager, said, "Best of all is the fact that we made good contacts with each other. We have decided to team up and collaborate on future programs to help improve Armenia's exports.".

Taya Battelle, CYSCA'S CC project administrator, organized home stays with volunteer host families to expose the participants to first hand experience in family life in America. She also organized a cultural program for the guests consisting of guided trips to historic and cultural sites in Greater Boston. Other committee members included Varujan Masrof, Jirair Babikyan, Sarkis Gennetian, Vartkes Karaian and George Changelian.

The CYSCA Community Connections (CC) program is now going full steam ahead into its sixth year. It is supported by grants from the US State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since the inception of our CC program in 1997, we will have hosted nine groups of professionals from Armenia, totaling 85 participants, arranging internships, technical training, academic programs and cultural activities for them. In addition, together with our CC alumni we have organized several follow-on programs in Armenia, aimed at spreading the knowledge gained by the participants in the USA. As a result we can proudly report that to date our training prograins plus the follow-on programs have benefited over 2,000 professionals in Armenia.

Under our current grant we hosted eight entrepreneurs from Yerevan, all English speaking, during the month of March 2002. Our CC committee has recruited individual internships, developed an academic program on business subjects, and arranged cultural activities. A second group of professionals will arrive on April 28, for a three-week professional training program in tourism. (This group, drawn from several different regions of Armenia, will be non-English speaking.) We have engaged Middlesex Community College to provide tourism training, with academic work at the college and practical training off-campus.

This year we organized two follow-on projects, which were implemented by our CC alumni. The first of these was a threeday "International Marketing and Export Workshop" led by Dr. Armen Asatryan, a CC alumnus of March 2000. This workshop covered the fundamentals of exporting. Several of our other CC alumni collaborated with Dr. Asatryan on this workshop. It was held in Yerevan, October 23-25, 2001, and then repeated in Jermuk, November 12-14, 2001. Approximately 30 participants attended each workshop. They expressed their gratitude to the organizers for an unusually productive program. One of the Yerevan participants who works for the "Narine-92" baby food business commented, "We have several export offers we are working on right now. This workshop gave us a lot of information on export procedures and export marketing. It was very effective for our enterprise .

Another follow-on project in Yerevan on December 6, 2001 focused on teaching environmental issues to preschool children. Entitled "Educational and Methodological Basis for Environmental Education in Preschool and Secondary School Entities: Problems and Prospects," it was organized by Dr. Marine Nalbandyan, a May 2000 CC alumna whose interests lie in the field of environmental education of youth. Several alumni of the CC and our annual youth exchanges collaborated with Marine on this workshop. One outcome of this project will be a teachers' manual on environmental education.

In addition to the above projects, we have organized other highly successful CC follow-on projects in the past few years:

• Seminar for Gyumri educators, October 10, 1998 (65 attendees)
• Conference for Hrazdan entrepreneurs, October 16-18, 1998 (131) attendees)
• Training program for 40 Gyumrl inner city school teachers for 16 weeks in 1998
• Hrazdan Business Association established in January, 1999
• Training of 940 village school teachers in 56 villages in Shirak Province, fall 1998
• Training of 750 village school teachers in 25 villages in Artik region, fall 2000
• Business Skills Training for 25 entrepreneurs in Sissian, repeated in Meghrl, fall 2000

We haved trained a wide range of individuals, including entrepreneurs from Hrazdan and Yerevan (two groups), environmental specialists from Yerevan, educators from Gyumri and Syunlk province, and employment specialists from Lori province.

CYSCA is grateful to the CC committee for their planning and implementation of the CC program: Taya Battelle, Project Administrator, committee members Sarkis Gennetian, Varujan Masrof, Vartkes Karaian, Jlrair Babikyan, and most recently, Sharyn Boornazian, Project Director. In addition to the above individuals, we are indebted to the countless home-stay families, internship and training providers and numerous other volunteers, whose help and assistance is a vital factor in the success of this program.

Our CC program is urgently in need of host families, internship providers and other volunteers. Those interested in helping the committee with this important work are invited to call Jack Medzorian at 781-729-6457 or Taya Battelle at 617-277-9548.