While on a working visit to Geneva, Chairperson of “My Step” Charitable Foundation, wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Mrs. Anna Hakobyan, and the Foundation’s Executive Director Mkhitar Hayrapetyan held a meeting with the representatives of the Armenian Diaspora of Switzerland at the invitation of the Diasporan organizations. Mrs. Hakobyan and Armenian Ambassador to Switzerland Andranik Hovhannisyan delivered welcoming remarks during the meeting. In her speech, Anna Hakobyan noted that the meeting pursued one goal – facilitating the development of Armenian nation, Armenia, and Artsakh.
“We, a nation spread around the globe, have gone through extreme hardships. We are still going through difficult times, but as I like to say, one day we need to turn the page of history and every Armenian, wherever in the world they are, should only feel pride and joy when speaking of Armenia. I want to assure you that all our efforts are aimed at it,” she said.
According to Anna Hakobyan, all activities of the Foundation have the objective of securing prosperity, happiness, and safety for every Armenian living in Armenia. She also noted that any and all efforts should be united more than ever, because there are still plenty of challenges ahead.
“Given our history and geographical position, I remind myself every day that we must do everything possible to mitigate, at least to some extent, the painful losses we suffered two years ago,” said Anna Hakobyan.
Following the opening remarks, the Foundation’s Executive Director Mkhitar Hayrapetyan presented the philosophy and mission of “My Step”. The best way to support people, he noted, is to provide them education and enhance their skills.
“We can help them become independent, self-reliant, strong, and capable to overcome daily challenges on their own. “My Step” Foundation wants to carry out programs and projects that are aimed at developing human capital,” said Mkhitar Hayrapetyan.
To explain why that purpose in particular is a priority for the Foundation, he noted that people -individuals with their ideas and abilities – are the key resource of Armenia, therefore, the Foundation allocates its entire potential to the programs that develop human capital.
“We try to use the human resource of Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora in order to be helpful to them. Our goal is to provide education and teach skills. The mission of the Foundation is to make our society competitive, so that it is resilient to future challenges and able to overcome any hardship,” added Mkhitar Hayrapetyan.
In order to have a strong state, we need to train strong and educated individuals. That is the logic behind the programs implemented by “My Step” Foundation. Mkhitar Hayrapetyan presented the 4 ongoing programs of the Foundation. “Horizons” Dual Educational Program, “Quanta” Master’s Program in Quantum and Mesoscopic Physics, as well as the “Discovering the Professional Potential of War Participants” and “Enhancing STEM fields in Public Schools” programs are all aimed at discovering human potential. They involve all social, age and other groups of the society.
The meeting concluded with a Q&A session, during which the representatives of Switzerland’s Armenian Diaspora inquired about the implementation of the ongoing programs. The Diaspora members underlined transparency and accountability as the priorities. In response, Mkhitar Hayrapetyan assured that detailed reports will be provided soon on the previous years of the Foundation’s activity.
The Diasporans in attendance thanked “My Step” Foundation representatives for introducing the completed and ongoing activities of the Foundation. Following the meeting, a number of Diasporan organizations and individuals applied to join the ongoing programs and pledged donation of around USD 100,000. In addition, a number of other organizations and individuals committed to consider joining and providing donations and to raise awareness of the Foundation’s activity at community meetings and events.