By the joint efforts of the Armenian National Diocese of Lebanon and the Armenian Educational and Cultural Society “Hamazgayin” YSU delegation of 9 people visited Lebanon from 31 October to 7 November. A meeting was organized with the members of the delegation of the Yerevan State University by the efforts of the leader of the Armenian Diocese in Lebanon, Bishop Shahé Panossian In the hall of the diocese "Erdzho-Samuelian-Eraguyn" on November 2. The meeting was attended by Directors of Armenian high schools, representatives of the local communities and others. A welcoming speech was delivered by a spokesman of the National Diocese Raffi Demirtchian. According to him, the meeting was organized to review the upcoming and already implemented tasks: "We hope that this and future meetings will be of practical value, the cooperation between the parties will be permanent and will move from theory to practice", - summed up Demirtchian.
Deputy Director of the Institute for Armenian Studies Mher Hovhannisyan spoke about the purpose of the visit. He presented steps already taken by the YSU, the cooperation with various Armenian communities of Diaspora, as well as the question of engaging students from diaspora in the master's programs "Genocide Studies" and "Armenian Studies". Hovhannisyan touched upon the agreement, acquired from the publishing house "Vahe Seteyan" on the publication of books on the history of Armenia and the teaching of that subject in Armenian schools of Lebanon. Then he talked about the master's program “Armenian Studies” and distance learning program, created in cooperation with Hamazkayin. Director of YSU Publishing House Karen Grigoryan spoke about YSU publishing activities from 1920 to the present day - about 5,500 books were published. Speaking about the cooperation with the publishing house "Vahe Seteyan", Grigoryan confirmed that an agreement should be concluded between the two sides for further substantive cooperation. Grigoryan singled out several important points about the work: the implementation of various educational programs in Armenia and Lebanon, the publication and distribution of educational, scientific, academic, electronic books on Armenian Studies. Member of the delegation Marcos Keseyan, in his turn, noted the importance of further collaboration between Sochi and other Armenian communities. Bishop Shahé Panossian - the leader of the Armenian Diocese of Lebanon delivered the closing speech. According to him, the ties between the Diaspora and the homeland was cut for a long time and experience of cooperation is too little. He stressed that the patriotic spirit of the Armenian community has decreased as compared to previous generations. Strengthening ties with the homeland will help to preserve the spirit of patriotism: "I wish you to develop and implement serious programs for preserving our common identity", - concluded the bishop. |