Author: Meline Chalian

From student to employee: sums up IDream program and announces launch of next phase

 14:55,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. has summed up the next phase of IDream initiative. During the final event of the project, the participants were awarded certificates on the successful completion of the project.

Thanks to IDream – "I dream" program, all participants gain practical and theoretical vital knowledge in banking. During the program, students also get acquainted with the nuances and challenges of the sale of various products and customer service.

According to Mariana Edilyan, the Director of Human Capital Management of , the IDream program is an excellent opportunity for bachelor's degree students to enter the banking sector and take the first practical steps in their profession. "At this stage of IDream, 7 out of 11 participants have joined us”, said Edilyan.

According to the Chairman of the Board of the Bank Mher Abrahamyan, the Bank regularly implements quality student programs. "They are especially useful for students without work experience, as well as for beginners who want to gain additional practical skills”, Abrahamyan said.

35 out of 45 students who participated in the educational programs of the Bank have already started working at .

The Bank has announced the next, fifth stage of the student educational program. From October 25, the next group of students will start their two-month journey with , at the end of which the best of them will become members of 's orange team.

The bank is controlled by the CBA.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1066396.html?fbclid=IwAR2dHRh8PyCr_1EUobI8JdE3ljMI3Ic-_7j6ANQhfQDXSONsjYwC1Jkv7Oo

 13:21,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan received today newly-appointed Representative of UNICEF to Armenia Christine Weigand on the occasion of presenting her credentials, the Armenian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The FM in his remarks appreciated the 27 years of activity of UNICEF in Armenia aimed at protecting the rights of children. He in particularly highlighted implementing different programs and initiatives aimed at improving child healthcare and education.

The meeting sides discussed the UNICEF’s 2021-2025 program document for Armenia.

They also discussed the humanitarian consequences of the 2020 war launched by Azerbaijan with Turkey’s support against Artsakh. Minister Mirzoyan emphasized the necessity of UNICEF’s more active engagement to ensuring the security, education and other rights of the children affected by the conflict.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Press Release 

FUSD Board of Trustees Recognize H (Hratch) Roger Tatarian by naming
school in his honor

Armenian Museum of Fresno

550 E. Shaw Ave. Fresno CA 93710 

Contact
Person: Varoujan Der Simonian

Contact
Number: 559.224.1001

[email protected]

Website:

 

October 14, 2021

 

Fresno,
CA:  We are pleased to report that the Fresno Unified School District
Board of Trustees unanimously voted to rename Forkner Elementary School after world-renowned journalist,
author, and prominent educator H. (Hratch) Roger Tatarian.  

  

In
over 140 years of Armenian presence in Fresno County, this is the first
time that out of 110 schools in the district, one of the schools will be named
after an Armenian-American.  

 

Few years ago, knowing
that there is no single school in the district named after any prominent
individual of Armenian descent in Fresno, former FUSD trustee Michelle Asadoorian
began exploring the possibility of naming a school. She spearheaded a campaign by
forming a committee of concerned individuals, who helped raise the level of
attention, creating awareness in that matter.

 

In this
community wide effort, Armenians and Non-Armenians alike worked together to
honor one of Central California’s prominent individuals who had an illustrious
career as a journalist on the world stage, and as a professor, educating
students to become world class journalists while teaching at Fresno State
University, where Endowed Chair in Journalism is named in his honor.

 

“On behalf of
the Armenian-American community of greater Fresno I appreciate the FUSD
Board of Trustee members for their decision,” said Asadoorian.  “I also would like to thank our committee
members who worked diligently during the past seven-month-long process, and to all
our friends, who participated and contributed in educating the public at large
by writing articles, letters, and or through personal contact assisting us in accomplishing
our mission.” Asadoorian added.

 

A product of
Fresno’s own public school system and a makeup of our multicultural society,
Tatarian’s life story could inspire students of deprived and affluent families
alike.  Tatarian personifies hope,
inspiration, courage, determination, vision and success – virtues in life that would
help parents and teachers to motivate their children and students in building a
cohesive community. 

 

Following is The
Fresno Bee Editorial  written by the Bee’s
opinion editor Tod Weber as published today, October 14, 2021 highlighting three
important reasons of this decision.  

Fresno board stands against racism
and upholds an Armenian star by renaming school

By Tad Weber October 14, 2021 12:47
PM

 

After a torturous process that
dragged out over several months, the Fresno Unified School District trustees
did the right thing Wednesday night in renaming Forkner Elementary for one of
the city’s star residents.

 

As of fall 2022, the school in
northwest Fresno will become H. Roger Tatarian Elementary. That is important
for three reasons.

 

First, Tatarian was a Fresno native
who rose to become editor in chief of United Press International, one of the
world’s two leading wire services. As such, he oversaw a news report that went
to millions around the globe. Just on those merits alone, naming a school after
Tatarian was deserved.

 

Second, Tatarian was an Armenian
American. Fresno Unified has more than 100 campuses, and none had been named
for an Armenian. The Armenian heritage in Fresno covers more than a century,
having begun out of the genocide that started in 1915 in their European
homeland, then controlled by Ottoman Turks. About 1.5 million Armenians died in
that genocide, an event many historians think was a precursor to the Nazi
Germany’s attempt to rid the world of Jews in the Holocaust.

 

Third, Forkner refers to J.C.
Forkner, a Fresno builder who developed Fig Garden. Forkner used deed
restrictions that made buyers commit to not selling their homes to any
“Asiatics, Mongolians, Hindus, Negroes, Armenians or any natives or descendants
of the Turkish empire … .”

 

The practice morphed into red-lining
by financial institutions, and effectively shut off home-purchasing
opportunities to anyone from those groups. Fresno suffers today from the
impacts of such race-based restrictions.

 

This larger point was mostly lost on
a group of Forkner parents who attended the school board meeting to protest the
renaming.

 

Forkner and racism.

 

It is probably asking too much to expect
such parents to see the bigger picture. Forkner is their children’s school, and
they would want to keep it as is. That is understandable.

 

But, one parent inadvertently got to
the larger meaning when she said the restrictions put in place by Forkner in
first half of the 1900s were legal.

 

Yes, they were. But that’s the
point. It was legalized racism. It was also legal at one time to keep Black
students separate from white kids.  In
Fresno, it was legal to keep Chinese residents “across the tracks” from where
whites lived. Being legal then does not make it right.

 

Thankfully, in 2021, Americans — and
Fresnans — are coming to grips with mistakes and failures of the past. It is
simplistic to label it as “cancel culture.” Actually, it is better called
maturing.

 

Renaming this elementary school pays
overdue honor to Fresno’s Armenian community and, at the same time, stamps out
the memory of a man who built his wealth through the use of racist covenants.

 

The school trustees of decades ago,
when Forkner first opened, should never have named it after him. But they did,
and years later a different board — composed of a Black woman, three Latinas, a
Filipina and a white man — unanimously made the right decision.

 

Teaching moment

Mark Arax, a local
Armenian-American, former Los Angeles Times reporter and best-selling author,
told the board that renaming the campus after Tatarian would accomplish
historical restitution and reckoning.

 

He also encouraged the Forkner staff
and parents to use this as a teaching moment. That’s probably a hard sell,
given the high emotions on display at the meeting.

 

But that is exactly what it is. The
renaming can only be properly understood in the context of the greater meaning.
 The students at Forkner Elementary
should know the truth about their old namesake, and the honorable reason for
their new one. That’s known as education.

 

Tad Weber is The Bee’s opinion
editor.

Read more at:
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article255005432.html#storylink=cpy

 

Turkish frigates TCG Barbaros and TCG Burgazada conducts maritime training with American destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aug. 26, 2020. (DHA)

 13:38, 8 October, 2021

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS. The hearings at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, over Armenia’s request to indicate provisional measures against Azerbaijan will be held on October 14-15.

On September 16, 2021, Armenia instituted proceedings against the Republic of Azerbaijan before the International Court of Justice with regard to alleged violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

Armenia also requested the Court to indicate certain provisional measures “as a matter of extreme urgency”, including the return of Armenian prisoners of war and civilian captives from Azerbaijan, as well as the closure of the so-called “Military Trophies Park” in Baku.

Armenia’s Representative before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Yeghishe Kirakosyan, who will represent Armenia’s interests at the International Court of Justice over this case, has provided details to ARMENPRESS.

“This is the first time that Armenia is submitting a request to the UN’s International Court of Justice. I think this is an unprecedented step made by Armenia”, he said.

He stated that the “evidence, facts, claims and demands presented in the request are quite large-scale and relate to the gross violations of the Convention, which we witness even today”. “For that purpose, Armenia, in addition to the proceedings, has also requested to indicate urgent or provisional measures. The hearings over this are scheduled on October 14 and 15, and a group has been formed for participating in those hearings, which involves also famous international experts who will help to present Armenia’s interests”, Kirakosyan said.

The examination stage of an urgent measure will be followed by the stage of examining the main request. The investigation of the main case will last for years, but the court is expected to make decision over the request on applying urgent measures in 1-1.5 month.

“I think the evidence we have presented are very convincing, the legal facts as well”, he said. “The fact that we already have an international legal process in the International Court of Justice where Armenia presents very clearly its demands and legal explanations, I think, will have quite a big impact on the formation of international public opinion and a right international public environment”, he added.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

 11:08, 28 September, 2021

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the State Revenue Committee Rustam Badasyan received Ambassador of Italy to Armenia Alfonso Di Riso to discuss the cooperation prospects in tax and customs administration field, the SRC reported.

In his remarks the SRC Chairman noted that the legal-contractual base between Armenia and Italy in tax and customs administration enables to run cooperation both at bilateral level and within the frames of international organizations.

The Armenian and Italian sides expressed their readiness to take practical steps to further expand the cooperation between the tax and customs authorities of the two countries.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan