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StarNewsOnline.com, North Carolina
July 28 2012
Locals aid Peace Corps volunteers in Armenia
By Judy Smith
Special to the StarNews
Editor's Note: Dave and Judy Smith are retired Kure Beach residents
currently serving a two-year stint in the Peace Corps in Armenia. This
story is one of their periodic updates from the field.
It has been a full year since David and I arrived in Armenia to begin
our service as volunteers with the U. S. Peace Corps. On that early
misty morning of June 4, 2011, we stood in awe as the sun rose above
Mt. Ararat. Little did we know of what experiences awaited us.
We've written about living with host Armenian families, studying a
difficult foreign language, adjusting to wide cultural differences and
finally moving to our own apartment in Dilijan. Now, David and I are
engaged in what we volunteered to do.
My primary assignment is teaching English as a foreign language while
David works in community and business development.
One of my projects involves lessons concerning dental health. In one
class, all but a few students had experienced dental pain. Two
students admitted to being in pain that day. Only one third of the
students in another class claimed to have brushed their teeth that
morning. Many children and adults exhibit decayed or missing teeth and
preventive dental care seems rare.
Recently, members of the Retired Nurses of Wilmington and participants
in the Women on Wednesday (WOW) continuing education class at the
University of North Carolina Wilmington collected and sent several
hundred toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste and packets of floss.
Students and needy community adults are overwhelmed with this
generosity as they listen to my lesson and receive their new supplies.
An exemplary Peace Corps project is managed by Caroline Lucas, who's
from Cary, and other volunteers who serve in Berd, near the border
with Azerbaijan. Rural women at the Berd Women's Resource Center make
teddy bears by hand and sell them online through Kickstarter. Peace
Corps volunteers have helped train these women in sound business
practices and money management, thus encouraging the women to earn
their own money for the first time in their lives. The Berd Bears are
becoming popular around the world and even inspired a children's
cartoon series by the same name.
Talin has a music school but its building is run-down and the
available instruments are in poor condition. There is no appropriate
place in which to hold performances. Peace Corps volunteer Brian
Bokhart, a professional musician before joining the Peace Corps, has
partnered with local organizations to initiate renovation of the
building and to purchase new instruments. A celebratory concert is
planned at the Talin Music School in September.
Susan Linden, Peace Corps volunteer and English teacher in
Noyemberyan, worked with her community to plan and develop a
greenhouse where students could study agri-science and business
management. The greenhouse is heated by waste heat from the school's
existing boiler system. Funds raised from sale of produce are used to
provide educational supplies to underprivileged students.
My husband David's work involves helping to write grants for his
partner organization, with the recent success of a grant that funded
the organization to monitor national congressional elections held in
May. This grant provided an avenue of scrutiny so that fair and
transparent elections could be held in the region, including in our
town of Dilijan.
As David and I begin our second year in Armenia, we are planning a
garden, including bee hives, at my technical college to provide income
for the cooking program, which is badly underfunded. That same college
offers a sewing curriculum, yet there is no budget for fabric. Thanks
to the interest of Karel Dutton of Wilmington and the generosity of
Paula Veltz, Dutton's friend and a quilting enthusiast from Leland, a
contribution of fabric has been shipped to the college. The fabric
will be turned into a future sewing project with items then sold to
fund the purchase of additional fabric for hands-on training in
sewing.
It has been busy, challenging and sometimes harsh here in Armenia, but
we and our fellow volunteers survive and continue to work on a variety
of small and large projects in addition to those described above.
Success will occur for each of these projects if they are long-lived
and continue to provide a positive impact, through the work of
Armenians, after Peace Corps volunteers return home.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120728/ARTICLES/120729687?Title=Locals-aid-Peace-Corps-volunteers-in-Armenia
July 28 2012
Locals aid Peace Corps volunteers in Armenia
By Judy Smith
Special to the StarNews
Editor's Note: Dave and Judy Smith are retired Kure Beach residents
currently serving a two-year stint in the Peace Corps in Armenia. This
story is one of their periodic updates from the field.
It has been a full year since David and I arrived in Armenia to begin
our service as volunteers with the U. S. Peace Corps. On that early
misty morning of June 4, 2011, we stood in awe as the sun rose above
Mt. Ararat. Little did we know of what experiences awaited us.
We've written about living with host Armenian families, studying a
difficult foreign language, adjusting to wide cultural differences and
finally moving to our own apartment in Dilijan. Now, David and I are
engaged in what we volunteered to do.
My primary assignment is teaching English as a foreign language while
David works in community and business development.
One of my projects involves lessons concerning dental health. In one
class, all but a few students had experienced dental pain. Two
students admitted to being in pain that day. Only one third of the
students in another class claimed to have brushed their teeth that
morning. Many children and adults exhibit decayed or missing teeth and
preventive dental care seems rare.
Recently, members of the Retired Nurses of Wilmington and participants
in the Women on Wednesday (WOW) continuing education class at the
University of North Carolina Wilmington collected and sent several
hundred toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste and packets of floss.
Students and needy community adults are overwhelmed with this
generosity as they listen to my lesson and receive their new supplies.
An exemplary Peace Corps project is managed by Caroline Lucas, who's
from Cary, and other volunteers who serve in Berd, near the border
with Azerbaijan. Rural women at the Berd Women's Resource Center make
teddy bears by hand and sell them online through Kickstarter. Peace
Corps volunteers have helped train these women in sound business
practices and money management, thus encouraging the women to earn
their own money for the first time in their lives. The Berd Bears are
becoming popular around the world and even inspired a children's
cartoon series by the same name.
Talin has a music school but its building is run-down and the
available instruments are in poor condition. There is no appropriate
place in which to hold performances. Peace Corps volunteer Brian
Bokhart, a professional musician before joining the Peace Corps, has
partnered with local organizations to initiate renovation of the
building and to purchase new instruments. A celebratory concert is
planned at the Talin Music School in September.
Susan Linden, Peace Corps volunteer and English teacher in
Noyemberyan, worked with her community to plan and develop a
greenhouse where students could study agri-science and business
management. The greenhouse is heated by waste heat from the school's
existing boiler system. Funds raised from sale of produce are used to
provide educational supplies to underprivileged students.
My husband David's work involves helping to write grants for his
partner organization, with the recent success of a grant that funded
the organization to monitor national congressional elections held in
May. This grant provided an avenue of scrutiny so that fair and
transparent elections could be held in the region, including in our
town of Dilijan.
As David and I begin our second year in Armenia, we are planning a
garden, including bee hives, at my technical college to provide income
for the cooking program, which is badly underfunded. That same college
offers a sewing curriculum, yet there is no budget for fabric. Thanks
to the interest of Karel Dutton of Wilmington and the generosity of
Paula Veltz, Dutton's friend and a quilting enthusiast from Leland, a
contribution of fabric has been shipped to the college. The fabric
will be turned into a future sewing project with items then sold to
fund the purchase of additional fabric for hands-on training in
sewing.
It has been busy, challenging and sometimes harsh here in Armenia, but
we and our fellow volunteers survive and continue to work on a variety
of small and large projects in addition to those described above.
Success will occur for each of these projects if they are long-lived
and continue to provide a positive impact, through the work of
Armenians, after Peace Corps volunteers return home.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120728/ARTICLES/120729687?Title=Locals-aid-Peace-Corps-volunteers-in-Armenia