Community Connections

Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association Awarded Community Connections Grants

Cambridge, MA: The Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA) announced award of a U. S. Department of State grant for five projects to be carried on in Armenia under its Community Connections (CC) program. These projects will be conducted by specialists from Armenia who had participated in CYSCA organized professional development/training programs in Greater Boston run annually since 1997 by CYSCA.

The approved projects under this grant are:

 

Village Teacher Training; This project is a continuation of two prior projects under which teams of educators from Gyumri, mostly CC alumni, will go to secondary schools in villages in the Shirak Marz (province) of Armenia. The current project will take these teams to 35 villages in Shirak to train 835 teachers and furnish them with educational materials including teachers' manuals and student school supplies. Prior projects took teams to 56 Shirak villages in 1998, training 940 teachers and 25 villages in 2000 to train 500 teachers. The current project will complete visits to ALL of the 116 village schools in Shirak. Project was conceived by CYSCA 1998 CC alumnus Levon Khachatryan, educator from Gyrumri, who will also direct the project.

 

Financing Manual for Micro Businesses: This project will develop a manual for small businesses to help them evaluate financial aspects of their businesses for them to be able to present proposals to financing institutions for loans and investments. Project will be manged by CYSCA CC 2004 alumnus Mkrtich Tatevosyan, executive at the Anelik Bank in Yerevan, who has also conceived the project.

Transportation Management: This project will be a primer on all aspects of transportation management, conceived by Irina Belubekyan and Marina Gharamanyan, both CC alumni from CYSCA's 2004 business training program. The booklet will be a comprehensive manual for those interested in becoming transportation managers and is the first of a series of such knowledge based projects proposed and conceived by Irena Belubekyan. 

Armenia Investment Manual: A how-to manual for persons interested in making investments in Armenia will be produced under this project headed by Narine Melikyan, CYSCA 2003 alumna teamed with other CYSCA CC alumni. The manual will cover all aspects of investments in Armenia, including economic issues, and legal and taxation regulations concerning investments in Armenia.

<>Yearbook on Small to Medium size Enterprises (SME's): This will be survey of the SME's in Armenia, providing information on these companies and their economic activity by sectors, products, export and import activity, etc. Project has been authored by Gegham Petrosyan CYSCA 2004 alumnus, and will be managed by him in collaboration with other CYSCA CC alumni.

These projects will be directed by Jack Medzorian, CYSCA Program Director aided by Taya Battelle, CYSCA consultant. Commenting on the launching of these projects, Jack Medzorian said, “We are pleased to have this opportunity to harness the energy and creativity of our Community Connections alumni in Armenia for such worthwhile projects. It is our hope and belief that these projects will enable our alumni to share the experience, knowledge and ideas they gained under our CYSCA programs with their colleagues in Armenia”.

 

Reprinted with the permission of the Cambridge Trust Co, from the Summer 2004

We had a special guest visit us here at Cambridge Trust a few weeks ago. Mkrtich Tadevosyan, a banker from Yerevan, Armenia, came to Cambridge Trust for two days as part of the Community Connections program. This program is run by the state department and sponsored through CYSCA, the Cambridge Yerevan Sister City Association.

As part of the Community Connections' exchanges, folks from other countries, in a number of professions, travel to the U.S. for three weeks. While in the states, they have internships and stay with a host family. The internships provide an invaluable learning opportunity to people from developing countries. The interns learn skills and new approaches in their fields from their professional counterparts here in Boston, which they then take home and apply.

Through person to person contact, they form friendships and business relations and share expertise. The various internships in this particular group included banking, accounting, auditing, legal information services, business consulting, freight forwarding, info technology, and graphic design.

Mkrtich is the head of the loan department of Anelik Bank in Yerevan, Armenia. For his internship, he wanted to gain a clear picture of banking in the U.S. and how we handle credit and lending issues.

When we meet with others from distant lands, especially those who essentially do the same work that we do, it gives us insight. We share with each other how we do business and provide services.

Said Susan Barry, “He sounds like he is trying to build a banking system from the ground up. We were talking about lending and how Cambridge Trust does it. We talked about mortgages. What he does is different because they don't have credit bureaus, they don't have taxes. People pay cash. He makes a decision based on the relationship."

We also learn from having such visitors.”[The Exchange] helps the bank get exposure to other ideas and points of view. It reflects the true nature of community banking in that we share our experiences with others...Mkrtich was very knowledgeable about banking. Their problems aren't different from ours. They face the same challenge of how to train and keep good people," according to Bob Davis, senior lender.

In an email Mkrtich wrote back to program organizers in the U.S., he said "I can certainly say that you have done your work excellently. The best gratitude to you I think, is our efficient use of received information and experience in Boston. Now in my sober head, I understand how gigantic were your efforts in organizing our internships."

In conclusion, Mkrtich's experience here was worthwhile and educating. The work done by the state department's Community Connections' program is important because it fills a real void. The information and skills gained from these exchanges is priceless: the most well-prepared classroom and the best written text book could not as effectively teach such lessons. Lastly, it is not only what the exchangees themselves learn, but what we learn about ourselves from having them here. We learn what we have to offer others, and that as a country, we are truly leaders in the world.

−Jennifer Bonislawski , 1720 Mass Ave.

YEREVAN ENTREPRENEURS TO ARRIVE IN BOSTON

Cambridge, MA: The Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA) announces the scheduled arrival in Boston on April 18, 2004 of ten entrepreneurs from Yerevan, Armenia. They will be guests of CYSCA under a Community Connections grant funded by the U. S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The group will be in the Greater Boston area for a four-week internship and professional development/training program.

THE PROGRAM

The Community Connections program has been organized by CYSCA to include internships with local Boston-area companies tailored for each individual according to their specific interests as well as academic workshops and cultural activities for the entire group.. While here, the participants will be living with volunteer host families in order for them to experience American home life, customs and culture. CYSCA has also arranged meetings with representatives of various community organizations in Greater Boston, a public forum, and a business workshop.

SPECIALTIES

The participants are all professional and experienced entrepreneurs from varied fields. They are: Mkrtich Tadevosyan, banking executive; Artur Andreasyan, director of an auditing firm; Irina Belubekyan, director of a freight forwarding company; Vahan Kamalyan, founder/director of a web design firm; Gohar Sargsyan founder/ director of another web design firm; Robert Avagyan, director of a legal data base company; Nune Arazyan, manager of a graphics design firm; Marine Ghahramanyan director of a computer software design firm; Marine Karapetyan, manager of a business consulting company; and Gegham Petrosyan, consultant for small and medium businesses. In all, there are five women and five men, ranging in age from 22 to 44 who won an open competition and were chosen by an independent committee based on merit, accomplishments, and potential for benefiting from the Community Connections program.

WORKSHOPS

As part of their academic development, the participants will engage in two workshops. One of these will be at Bentley University in Waltham, MA organized by the Dean of the management school, Dr. Allan Nurick and facilitated by Dr. Gregory Adamian, Chancellor of Bentley University. At this workshop they will participate in marketing and management presentations by Bentley faculty. Another workshop called ¥Hye Achievers¥ will be held on May 8 at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in Woburn, MA. This workshop is organized by Harry Alexanian and is sponsored by the Armenian Network, Knights of Vartan Arakadz Lodge, and CYSCA. It will consist of concurrent sessions featuring prominent area businessmen who will share their experience and the secrets of their success. Public is invited and reservations are required.

PUBLIC FORUM

On May 12, 2004 CYSCA has organized a public forum at Cambridge College, 80 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MA, at 7 pm, featuring the participants from Armenia, which will follow the CYSCA annual meeting. Moderator of this forum will be Dr. Nubar Afeyan, prominent Boston area businessman. This event will be an opportunity for the community to meet the guests from Armenia and to learn about doing business in Armenia, their challenges, the major issues confronting them and ideas for further improving the business climate in Armenia.. Admission is free and the public is invited.

ABOUT COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

Training of this business group is a continuation of CYSCA's Community Connections program begun with the U. S. State Department in 1997. Since then CYSCA has trained 100 specialists from Armenia in diverse fields, including entrepreneurship, education, environmental protection, tourism, cultural/historic specialists and employment specialists, public health providers¥all made possible by approximately $1million of grants to CYSCA from the State Department since 1997 as well as contributions from countless volunteers in the Greater Boston community.

Program Director Jack Medzorian commented, We are delighted to have the opportunity to introduce these young, dynamic entreprenuers from Armenia to USA counterparts. There is no doubt that our guests from Armenia will return home with ideas and concepts that will help them with their challenging task of improving the economy of their young, developing nation. We fully expect that our guests will make invaluable long-term connections that will help them in the future. Our special thanks to the many companies and individuals who have volunteered their time and resources to make this program a success.

CYSCA has organized several successful follow-on projects in Armenia to assist the CC alumni once they return to Armenia to spread the benefit and knowledge they gained to a wider audience. Over the years there have been many such projects, including establishment of a business association in Hrazdan, a business conference in Hrazdan, a village teacher training program in the Shirak region, an educational conference in Gyumri, a seminar on early environmental education teaching methods, export marketing workshops in Yerevan and Jermuk, a business conference in Yerevan, a business skills training program in Sissian and Meghri, production of an Armenia Export catalog, a training program and booklet on exporting basics, and a training program and survey of education and skills for the new economy.

One of the current participants, Marine Karapetyan, comments, As a business consultant I provide advice to business clients. I want to take advantage of my visit to investigate export opportunities for Armenian enterprises and to learn about USA import/export procedures and regulations. Gohar Sargsyan, CEO and founder of an IT start-up company looks forward to her internship, commenting ¥My principal goal for this visit is to experience maximum professional development and training in an American IT company so I can contribute to the IT business development in Armenia. Also, I am excited to learn about USA culture and meet many nice people. Nune Arazyan looks forward to enhancing her knowledge in graphic arts, stating, I hope to learn management style and ideas of a business like mine which I can implement in my future business plans, learn the American life style and make lots of friends.

The CYSCA Community Connections program is run by a team headed by Program Director Jack Medzorian, Dr. Ara Ghazarians, Program Manager, Taya Battelle, Program Administrator, and supported by volunteers Varujan Masrof, Jirair Babikyan, Sarkis Gennetian, Vartkes Karaian, George Changelian, and Suzanne Pearce. The committee has received invaluable help from countless volunteers in the community, notably, volunteer host families, internship hosts, translators, drivers, and other volunteers to support this program. Those interested in participating in this program should contact Taya Battelle at 617-277-9548 or Ara Ghazarians at 781-646-3090.

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS FOLLOW-ON PROJECTS

by:Jack Medzorian October 8, 2003

During my October trip to Armenia I had meetings with the project managers of the two follow-on projects of our 2003 business group.

Education and Skills for the New Economy The purpose of this project is to establish through a survey of businesses the projected employment needs in the near term as the economy of Armenia develops. I met with Lilit Ginosyan, project manager of this project initially at the Economic Forum on Sep 23 and had a general discussion of her project performance to date and programmed actions to completion of the project. We agreed to meet again to discuss more details together with members of her team. We met again on Sep 26 together with Marina Poghosyan and other members of our CC 2003 Business alumni, some of who are participating in the follow-on projects. Again on Oct 2 I met with Lilit and Kegham Poghosyan one of the key members of her team and discussed her project in more detail. Lilit reported that she has expanded the number of survey participants from 50 to 60. Questionnaires are now in and are being evaluated. Summary results will be available by end of October and will include the information for both report on education and skills needed as well as subjects to be covered in the seminars to commence in November based on suggestions from the survey participants. There will be four seminars each with 10 participants. These will be run by Marina Poghosyan (CC 2003) and Aram Navasardyan (CC 2002). In summary, all tasks are on schedule, within budget. Tasks to be completed are the summary of questionnaire results (Oct), booklet (Nov), seminars (Nov and Dec) and final report (Dec).

Increasing Exports of Armenia Products and Services This project is managed by Marina Poghosyan through the NGO Professional Association of Trainers (PAT). I met with her on two occasions and had telephone discussions with her as well to review the progress on her project. On Oct 3 I met with her and some of her team members, Noune Melikyan (PAT), Marina Sarkisyan (PAT), and Vahram Tonoyan (Ntl Academy of Science) for more detailed discussions. This project is behind schedule due to unavailability of key persons due to vacations in July and August. They are catching up now primarily by doing tasks in parallel and expect to be on schedule by the end of Oct. Questionnaires have been sent out and have been returned and experts have been interviewed as well for their inputs to the booklet and round table topics. This evaluation will be complete by the end of October. I suggested they add Dr. Armen Asatryan (CC 2000) to their list of experts as he is quite knowledgeable in the subject of exporting and has conducted export-training workshops as a CC follow-on.

We also discussed the sale of the booklets and application of proceeds. The price will be 500 dram ($0.75). These proceeds will be given to the Professional Association of Trainers (an NGO) to offset the in-kind contributions they are making to the project. Remaining tasks to be completed are: Information/collection and editing (Oct), Brochure design (Oct), Brochure printing (Nov), Round table participant selection (Oct) Round table including ethics discussions (Oct), Training needs assessment (Oct), Training (mid Oct-Nov), Final report (Dec). As for financial status, the project is on schedule. Marina will furnish me her Sep monthly report and copy of the questaire t before I leave Armenia. Next and final installment of funds will be sent after receipt and review of the Oct monthly report, due Nov 10. Subsequent to this meeting Marina informed me that she needs $2,000 now to defray the costs ofprinting and I agreed to send this when I return mid October.

AEC (Armenia Export Catalog): This is the follow-on project of the team of Aram Navasardyan project manager, Noune Margaryan and Davit Nercissyan (CC 2002). Project was completed last December and copies of the CDs have been distributed. The information from this project has been an invaluable input to the two follow-on projects currently in progress.

I met with Aram Navasardyan on Oct 7 to review current developments on his project. Since last year the team has been trying to get funding for printing hard copies of the catalog. Last year I visited funding organizations with the team to try to help them get funding and their efforts have been ongoing. Sep 13 they received good news from Eurasia Foundation in the form of a grant of $17,625 towards the printing of the catalogue. Work commenced Oct 1 and will be completed Apr 13, 2004.

The catalog will be an updated version to be called AEC 2003 and include additional companies from the present total of 63 to a minimum of 115 with a target of 200 names. Also they will reorganize the catalog information section and index section to facilitate look-up of information. I made some suggestions for improvement in the forward section and formatting.

It now appears that there has been general acceptance of our catalog as THE reference book in Armenia for exporting. The Armenia Development Agency, which had produced an earlier version, now uses our catalog. At the recent Armenia-Diaspora Economic Forum our AEC disc was a handout for the participants. Aram has distributed 1,000 to the ADA (they paid cost for this), 100 in USA and 200 in Georgia. The new AEC 2003 will be produced in English and Russian on CD and printed in English. When Aram receives additional funding from outstanding proposals he will print hard copies of the AEC 2003 in Russian. His plan is to distribute to all of the 46 Armenian Embassies and the Armenian-Russian Businessmens Association. This is scheduled for Feb 2004.

Aram left his position at Sed Marsed company and established two organizations. One is a for profit company, MPG (Marketing Professional Group, Ltd), marketing consultants. MPG is exclusive distributor of a Russian business journal. MPG has two employees. Current contracts include project for Grand Candy Company to develop a marketing program for focus groups, a marketing program for the Ijevan Wine Company, and a basalt cutting facility. Aram credited his CC program in Boston where he learned about marketing to focus groups. The other organization created by Aram is the AMA (Armenian Marketing Association). To date he has 14 members. They have an association with the Russian Marketing Association with whom they plan seminars and exhibitions. I

n June 2003 the AEC team of Aram, Noune and Davit as well as other CC alumni attended a Community Connections Conference in Tiblisi, Georgia for CC participants from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Aram presented his AEC project and a proposal for a joint project for an Export Catalogue covering the three republics. This conference was attended by ECA program managers Michelle Peters and Laura Markevics, who were supportive of Aram's initiative and requested a draft proposal.

All in all, Aram's initiatives and his collaboration with CC alumni and other professionals are excellent examples of ongoing benefits to a wider audience from our CC follow-on projects. Jack Medzorian, Yerevan Both projects held workshops/forums during November and will be publishing booklets on their programs. Anyone interested in more information on these projects can contact the project managers directly as follows:

Increasing Armenia's Exports: Marina Poghosyan, mpoghosyan@medi.am
Education and Skills for New Economy: Liliy Ginosyan, project manager, lilit_g2001@yahoo.com