Living in the French city of Dijon and carrying out activities to preserve the Armenian identity with her husband, the founder of the Armenian community of Dijon and principal of the Mashtotsyan Tarer Armenian School Lilit Baghramyan has one vision, and that is to keep young Diaspora Armenians away from the danger of assimilation, as well as disseminate Armenian culture and preserve the purity of the Armenian language. True, she does face obstacles on her way, but she doesn’t feel depressed because she has support from people who share her ideas.

In an interview with Hayern Aysor, Lilit Baghramyan shared her story of how she settled in France and how the community and local Armenian school were established.

“In 2005, I got married and moved to the French city of Dijon where there were only 30 Armenian families. My husband and I noticed that the families were very detached from the Armenian reality and felt very sad and great pity. We decided to help them in any way, and we were especially concerned about the young Armenians.

In 2010, we established the Armenian community of Dijon. The result was visible after we revitalized community life and the number of Armenian families grew to 300.

I am a teacher by profession. I followed in my parents’ footsteps. Of course, settling and growing in France was the imperative of the time, and we overcame the difficulty with honor.

In the beginning, to keep ourselves busy, my husband and I decided to get involved in community service at the municipality of Dijon.

After working for three years, the mayor told us he wanted to do something for us as a token of his appreciation. When he asked what we needed, we immediately came up with the idea of asking for a space to open an Armenian school.

Frankly, we sort of doubted that he would pay heed to our request, but our expectations were met. In 2011, we established the Mashtotsyan Tarer Armenian School, which currently has 25 students and offers classes on the weekends.

Later, I gathered a team of teachers, dance instructors and other professionals from my circle and started carrying out pro-national activities with them. True, it was hard at first and we thought we would fail, but everything went well.

Our activities sparked great reactions among the Armenians of Dijon. They accepted my invitation with pleasure and expressed willingness to work as volunteers at our school. Our intelligent teachers are self-dedicated and aware of their mission as teachers.

They teach Armenian Language, Armenian Literature, History of the Armenian Church and Armenian History with the textbooks and curriculum designed for Armenian schools abroad. We also have a choir and dance group and offer chess courses.

We have reached the point where the students want to visit Armenia and participate in the “Ari Tun” Program of the RA Ministry of Diaspora after learning Armenian. Words can’t describe how excited they get when they return to Dijon, share their impressions with their friends and advise them to participate in the program as well. They also visit with the support of various French organizations to work as volunteers in the regions.

This year, we celebrated the school’s fifth anniversary. On that occasion, the RA Ministry of Diaspora granted certificates to the teachers and certificates of appreciation to two parents.

In 2012 and 2014, we addressed the RA Ministry of Diaspora with the request for textbooks and supporting materials. We already have quite a lot of books that help us a lot. Preservation of the Armenian identity is truly the greatest issue in the Armenian Diaspora, and we need a helping hand.

People of different nationalities (French, Italian and African) come to our school to learn Armenian and become familiar with Armenian culture. The school also has an Armenian Youth Club with 27 members.

We try to maintain the relations with the Homeland by following the traditions and presenting them to the young generation. For instance, we celebrated the Day of the Battle of Musaler by preparing the Armenian harisa dish and presenting the symbol of the day with songs and dances. The events are organized through the combined efforts of the teachers and students.

Allow me to mention that we actively collaborate with the schools of the Jrarat and Jrarpi villages of Armenia’s Armavir province and the Gitunik College in Etchmiadzin. I hope we solve our problems and achieve many victories through cooperation with the RA Ministry of Diaspora and our partnering educational institutions.”

Gevorg Chichyan