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Արևմտահայերեն
РусскийLeader of Armenian community of New Zealand says he received a lot of interesting information during the 6th Armenia-Diaspora Pan-Armenian Conference
Leader of the Armenian community of New Zealand Noubar Yaghoubian was one of the participants of the 6th Armenia-Diaspora Pan-Armenian Conference held on 18-20 September under the title “Mutual Trust, Unity and Responsibility”.
In an interview with Hayern Aysor, Noubar Yaghoubian talked about not only the conference, but also community life.
Noubar Yaghoubian: The Armenian community of New Zealand was established 20 years ago in the city of Oakland, which is now home to 25 Armenian families from different countries around the world.
Although the community is small in number and doesn’t have a church, it does everything it can to preserve the national identity. An Armenian clergyman from Sydney always visits us, holds talks and serves a Holy Mass for us. In fact, we have planned on building an Armenian church named after St. Gregory the Illuminator in Oakland, and I think this will consolidate the local Armenians around the church and lead to a spiritual awakening.
The community is concerned about the preservation of the Armenian identity of the young Armenians of Australia. It is a little hard to connect them to Armenia, but we are working hard in that direction. For instance, we collaborate with the AGBU Armenian Virtual University.
This is the first time that I am participating in a conference organized by the Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia, and I hope our collaboration with the Ministry grows even more. We are always in touch with Armenia, but our contacts won’t become strong, if we don’t participate in such initiatives. On the sidelines of the conference, I also had a meeting with Minister of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia Hranush Hakobyan. We discussed the Armenian community’s activities and issues related to preservation of the Armenian identity and touched upon the conference.
In general, I am content with the 6th Armenia-Diaspora Pan-Armenian Conference. I received a lot of interesting information and met people from various communities with whom our community will try to create a field of cooperation.
Gevorg Chichyan
