Diaspora Armenian teachers have been undergoing training in the homeland for a week already. Representatives of Yerevan State University received them with open arms and wished that the best experts would help them learn about the changes in Armenian, gain more knowledge and acquire more skills in teaching.

Today’s lecture stood out with the style and spirit of patriotism. The host of the course, Mr. Nver Virabyan has been working at the National Institute of Education of the Republic of Armenia for many years and has been to many countries, including Egypt, Iran and other countries. During his visits, he has become familiar with the lifestyles of the members of the local Armenian communities, as well as their problems and achievements. He knows how hard it is for Armenians abroad. In addition to earning a living and raising a family, they also face the problem with preserving the Armenian identity since they see foreigners everywhere they go. “However, I “see” the calling of the homeland in the eyes of these teachers, the boys and girls visiting the homeland and every Diaspora Armenian wishing to learn Armenian. Of course, time and space are impeding factors, but the efforts that they make and the work that the Ministry of Diaspora does deserve appraisal,” Mr. Virabyan mentions. He believes the task of Armenian language teachers in the Diaspora is a heroic deed because they accomplish their mission with dedication, by doing their best to provide Armenian children with an education and sometimes with low salaries. “This runs in the blood of every Armenian who comes into this world. During the massacres, Armenian mothers would draw the letters of the Armenian alphabet on the sands and teach their children. That still exists, and so we can live at ease,” says Nver Virabyan, but emphasizes that most Armenian parents don’t raise their children the right way and think they don’t need to know the mother language in the country where they live. According to the expert, this mentality can lead to devastating consequences.

In the 1920s, one of the first Diaspora Armenian writers, Shahnur, sounded the alarm about the loss of identity and mentioned that the loss of language was a primary issue. Armenians are losing their language even a century after Shahnur sounded the alarm. “The issues that the writer raised a century ago are current today. As long as we still haven’t developed and created a strong economy, aren’t socially secure and haven’t built a country that can become better than any other country in the world, Diaspora Armenians won’t come back and will continue to lose. Through these programs, we’re trying to decelerate the process until we reach the point where we all dance around Mount Ararat,” says Mr. Virabyan.