I Heart the AGBU Generation Next Mentorship!
I heart the AGBU and the Generation Next Mentorship is one of my favorite programs. I think they do a great job to proactively and assertively reach out to At-Risk Armenian Youth in the Glendale Unified School District. They are in need of mentors who can positively impact the life of students that need guidance. Can that be you?
I was a mentor for three years and know that the time requirement is fairly significant but it will turn out to be very fulfilling. You will be part of a program with some very cool adults that the program attracts and also make a positive impact in the life of a student who will teach you as much as you are teaching them. The program pairs one student with one adult for the course of the school year and you will spend one-on-one time with them as well as be part of a number of group activities.
There is an upcoming informational session you can attend at the AGBU Pasadena Alex Manoogian Center to find out more:
INFORMATIVE SESSION
Thursday, December 14, 2006
7:00PM Opening Reception (refreshments)
7:30PM Orientation begins promptly
AGBU Alex Manoogian Pasadena Center, Boyajian Hall
2495 E. Mountain St.Pasadena, CA 91104
Ara Arzumanian, Director
Armenian General Benevolent Union
Generation Next Mentorship Program
626.794.7942 office
818.395.2252 cell
Check them out online: www.agbugennext.org
:)
I was a mentor for three years and know that the time requirement is fairly significant but it will turn out to be very fulfilling. You will be part of a program with some very cool adults that the program attracts and also make a positive impact in the life of a student who will teach you as much as you are teaching them. The program pairs one student with one adult for the course of the school year and you will spend one-on-one time with them as well as be part of a number of group activities.
There is an upcoming informational session you can attend at the AGBU Pasadena Alex Manoogian Center to find out more:
INFORMATIVE SESSION
Thursday, December 14, 2006
7:00PM Opening Reception (refreshments)
7:30PM Orientation begins promptly
AGBU Alex Manoogian Pasadena Center, Boyajian Hall
2495 E. Mountain St.Pasadena, CA 91104
Ara Arzumanian, Director
Armenian General Benevolent Union
Generation Next Mentorship Program
626.794.7942 office
818.395.2252 cell
Check them out online: www.agbugennext.org
:)
posted by Lisa M. at 7:59 AM
6 Comments:
EXCELLENT program!!! If I wasn't around kids and youth already, and somehow got stuck in a 9-5 desk job, this would be the best solution... (hint hint).. There's no reason why we shouldn't be having a SURPLUS of mentors... get off ur --tts and change lives :)
AGBU is changing lives all right by closing schools like Melkonian in Cyprus. Now many Armenian kids will not have the chance to learn their mother tangue.
Haig, do you say they won't have a chance because Beirut is too far and expensive or because Armenia is too far and expensive to send kids off to school?
And do you say they have no chance because most of their parents didn't know Armenian? I learned Armenian at home, the way it's been passed down for thousands of years...
While I sympathize with the Melkoniantsis for having their school which had existed since the 1920s (thus having sentimental value) being closed down by the AGBU...
I think it's high time that an Armenian [boarding] school for diasporans was built in ARMENIA. NOT Lebanon, NOT the United States, NOT Canada, NOT France. ARMENIA. Yerevan would be great. If not Yerevan then Echmiadzin. I mean, even if the "lingua franca" in Hayastan is Eastern Armenian and the Armenian taught at Melkonian was, I believe, Western Armenian, who cares? Is it impossible to teach Western Armenian in Armenia? It is not, as many professors and educated students are pretty fluent in the dialect (or at least in the Mesrobian spelling). I think it's possible.
That's my two dram on this issue.
Haig, The AGBU is really an exemplary organization - they have a truly admirable reach, as passionate a commitment on the part of their employees and volunteers as I could hope to ever see, and really work to leave no stone unturned. I have been part of a handful of their committees and programs over the years and really yet have to hear ONE person who feels wronged by them. So, even if you didn't agree with their decision on Melkonian, it's pretty unfair to fault them on that point alone. Adaptation and change is good for progress in life;)
I studied in MEI and they were many kids who didn’t know a single word in Armenian when they came. Some of them were only 1/4 Armenians. After a year or so they learned not only the language but they were Armenianised because they lived in an Armenian environment, and some of them married fellow Melkoniantsis. AGBU can easily open a school in Armenia and it never hurts to have MEI Cyprus as a sister school. If it is all about expenses then Cyprus government is ready to cover the major portion of the expenses and MEI Alumni will cover another portion instead of spending money on court cases. ALUMNI offered this many times but AGBU CB never talked to us.
There is no other Armenian Boarding School in Diaspora other than MEI. MEI is strategically located and always acted as a safe place for children from unstable Middle East and Mediterranean. It is even safe after Cyprus joined EU. Many student from Iraq and Lebanon wanted but couldn’t attend because MEI is now closed. All graduates continued their education in acclaimed universities.
I guess none of you have been on the grounds of MEI (maybe only Shooshan (?)). Go there and you will be amazed that what a wonderful Armenian oasis it was and in some way still is. No wonder that why it was the first Turkish target in 1974 even before the Cyprus Public TV and Radio stations were bombed. MEI buildings were the most bombed by Turks. It seems that Turks again know more about the value then some of us.
AGBU is closing MEI merely because it is a higher level policy to decrease the number of Armenian in Middle East as local Armenian communities’ influence in the development of those countries.
I would advise you put your foot in MEI or at least GoogleEarth.
AGBU is a honourable organisation unfortunately it is it's leaders that devalue it. MEI is not the first school that AGBU closed.
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