Birthright Armenia
Date: May 5, 2010
Contact: Linda Yepoyan
info@birthrightarmenia.org
www.birthrighta rmenia.org

FILLING EMPTY SHELVES:
Birthright Armenia Alum Takes Steps to Stock Armenia’s Public Libraries

Glendale, CA – Checking out a book at a public library in a region outside
of Yerevan is a rare occurrence. Books are old and tattering, or simply
outdated from Soviet times, and for the most part, inaccessible. Resources
are scarce in the regions, and little information gets to the public,
including access to free and user friendly or children-geared activities and
resources. Diana Ovsepian decided that maybe she could do a little something
to restack these shelves- by starting a mass-book drive across the United
States to make "Children’s Corners" a reality of Armenia’s public libraries.

After her volunteer service in Armenia with Birthright Armenia-the
organization that sponsors Diasporan Armenians from all over the world
(covering flight and homestay) to volunteer in Armenia for at least two
months-Ms. Ovsepian is taking the "next step" in her involvement with the
Homeland. Every year, based on a peer review by the Alumni Committee,
Birthright Armenia awards several $2,500 "Next Step" Grants from the Alumni
Fund to an alum or group project, the concept of which addresses a priority
need in Armenia.

"Library as the Center of Civil Society" was the Alumni Committee’s first
worthy choice of 2010. Ms. Ovsepian is currently spearheading a project to
create "Children’s Corners" in partnership with the Civilitas Foundation on
their "Library Initiative" Project. The project seeks to renovate the
physical foundations of existing libraries throughout Armenia’s ten regions,
adding more light and better public access to these facilities, refreshed
sections of English books, computers with internet access, children’s
learning tools and computer literacy training.

Reconnecting with her former internship site upon her return home after her
community service, Ms. Ovsepian decided to lead the "Children’s Corners"
initiative. "Civilitas asked us to do Children’s Corners and bring in
children’s books because the libraries don’t have much of that to begin
with," comments Ms. Ovespian. With these Children’s Corners, the project
will also include children’s books in English to help develop language
skills, as well as textbooks as teaching tools.

Ms. Ovsepian was then faced with a large task: to reach her goal in
collecting enough books to stack ten public libraries in each region of
Armenia. Each library requires approximately 300 books, and so she is making
her count to 3,000. However, how does one person plan to collect over 3,000
English, Russian and Armenian language books in the US in order to send them
to Armenia from Los Angeles?

By book drives and a pan-American book donation, of course! On January 24,
Ms. Ovsepian held her first Children’s Book Drive in Los Angeles and
collected over 300 books. She then set up book drop-off sites around Los
Angeles at local Armenian schools, bookstores and businesses to gain
publicity for the project and maximize the collection. "It also looks like
we’re going to be working with the Pasadena city library and the UCLA
library."

Diana Ovsepian, a native of Los Angeles, CA, first started collecting books
for children during her stay in Yerevan after a visit to the SOS children’s
village as part of the weekly educational excursion series organized by
Birthright Armenia in 2009. "One of the ‘house moms’ told me that the older
kids love to read books, but they never have enough to go around, or they
would get in one new book and that one book would go around the entire
orphanage. So after that I just went to the Vernisage flea market and bought
a few bags full of books and had them sent over to SOS."

With the Children’s Corners project and the help of Birthright Armenia,
Diana is now able to channel these efforts into something that will reach a
greater public circulation. And, the project doesn’t reach only the shelves.
In its vision, the project hopes to ensure that generations of children will
reap the benefits of the resources being collected, moving past the
short-term gratifications of most types of donations for children. Further,
"Most Armenian libraries are not very user friendly in terms of resources
and the facilities themselves," comments Ms. Ovsepian in response to her
hopes for the project’s public response in Armenia. "After the project is
completed, I hope people will begin to see the libraries as an open and
welcoming environment for them to go and enjoy, especially for the
children."

"Once all the books are collected, we will ship them to the Civilitas
Foundation in Yerevan and they will be distributed accordingly among the ten
libraries," explains Ovsepian. "Right now we have about 2,500 books and
textbooks collected and we are trying to figure out what the best way is to
ship them over. The United Armenia Fund has a service where they ship things
to Armenia free as long as it is going to a non-profit organization. The
only issue is that we need to be able to fill an entire shipping container,
and to do that we need at least 3,000 more books."

Ms. Ovsepian’s pan-American book drive for the "Library Initiative
Children’s Corners" has not ended, and collecting books to contribute can be
as simple as going to your local library and asking for a donation. "We need
children’s books in English, Armenian and Russian, and they can be new or
used," says Diana. If you have books you would personally wish to donate or
collect, please send them to: 1500 Lynglen Dr., Glendale, CA 91206. Diana
can be reached directly via email: sdauniversal@aol.com. Diana hopes to
complete the project as soon as she reaches her 5,500 mark, sending the
books on the next container to Armenia.

Diana is another example of the dynamic, young adults coming through the
Birthright Armenia program. Such leadership initiatives not only serve
Birthright Armenia alumni in their own professional career development, but
also help nurture young diasporans to be prepared for leadership roles
within their Armenian communities and institutions. To learn more about
Birthright Armenia, please visit