13:15, 4 August 2022
YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. Individuals and organizations from around the world are joining forces to help strengthen and develop Armenia and Artsakh within the framework of Armenians Forward Together Forum 2022, the second All-Armenian Collaboration Forum in Yerevan.
The three-day Forum has been organized by volunteers living in the United States, Canada and Armenia whose purpose is to create opportunities for the collaboration of organizations and individuals.
“People, who want to cooperate, present their ideas and find people, who could help develop ideas not only financially, but also with their knowledge and efforts, have gathered here. There are projects both at a level of an idea and those that are already being implemented”, Hripsime Mkrtchyan, Assistant-Professor at the American University of Armenia, researcher at the Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory, said.
The Forum aims at gathering people with the same interests and projects in one place, enabling them to talk, know each other, collaborate and create new opportunities.
Armine Karapetyan from San Francisco, representing Publicis Groupe, said that the idea of holding this Forum came after the 44-Day Artsakh War. “We wanted to invest our strength and knowledge in order to be able to organize something that will help both Armenia and Artsakh”, she said.
On the first day of the Forum, on August 4th, 19 different organizations and initiatives were presented. In the next two days 14 seminars will be held during which educational, cultural heritage preservation, crisis management, cancer research and other projects will be discussed. The Office of the State Minister of Artsakh, the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia, LeranmingMission, RepatArmenia and other organizations have also contributed to the organization of the Forum.
“Our primary goal was to help children of families displaced from Artsakh who were deprived of education that days. We are now assisting the schools of Syunik [province], we are opening computer laboratories in schools, provide notebooks by which teachers from US are holding online classes”, Alina Vehuni, representing California-based Hye Hopes, said during the Forum. The company Hye Hopes has been founded after the 44-Day war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh. It has already opened laboratories in Kapan, Verishen, Meghri, and will soon open in schools of Sisian and Goris. The company is teaching different subjects, such as robotics, programming, leadership, English. “We want to establish cooperation with the organizations that are operating in education sector”, she said, commenting on their participation in the Forum.