Living to Serve And Serving as An Example

Joining FAR in 2007 was groundbreaking: familiar yet new at the same time. The work with FAR was a dramatic change for Piliposyan, whose family members for generations have been engineers.

“The work I do with FAR is investing in the future of Armenia and the young generation. It is very heartwarming,” she says proudly, during a recent interview in New York City.

Helping children, multi-child families, elderly, youth, orphans, and people with special needs, is a noble mission that a dedicated team with Piliposyan as program director carry on proudly and professionally. “We are a low-cost, high-impact organization, hitting our arrows where the need is greater,” continued Piliposyan. “I love working with a dedicated team, and have to mention that young women leaders constitute a core group of my FAR family. It is thanks to them and our love, empathy and passion that we are able to achieve more than is planned. I am proud to be a small particle of this wonderful organization.”

“One of the beauties of my jobs is the work with younger generation,” she said. “I love working with talented youth, guiding and mentoring them, admiring their professional growth.”

Piliposyan is a result-driven leader, not only at her job, but in a number of volunteering initiatives with which she is involved. Even after quitting the job with the NGO Center, she continued guiding the team as a chair of the organization, served at the Eurasia Foundation’s Armenia branch as an advisor on civil society development issues, permanently sits on proposal review committees of different organizations such as UNDP’s Global Environmental Facility, Eurasia Partnership Foundation and World Learning Armenia. Currently, she is in an advisory council of the World Vision Armenia, and a recent president of the Rotary Club of Yerevan.

Fourth-Generation Yerevantsi

Born in Yerevan, Piliposyan is a fourth-generation native of Yerevan coming from an engineering family. “I lived a happy childhood in the 1970s of the last century, and was raised in a traditional family, with three generations living in one apartment for 18 years,” she recalls.

She especially admires her grandfather on her father’s side, Ruben Piliposyan with whom she mostly lived, since her parents were frequently traveling. Her grandfather, a Genocide survivor, was born in Igdir/Surmalu in 1904. His family fled in 1915, returning to Igdir, and again fleeing in 1918, finally settling in Yerevan. He was a civil engineer, and became an apprentice at Alexander Tamanian’s studio (the architect who created the master plan of Yerevan), she explains.

“He was an extremely gentle, kind man who radiated peace and comfort, growing up in a family of eight children. Losing his two brothers in World War II, he took an important role in caring for his brother’s family until they were adults and on their own. “He was a silent, comfortable, wise and reliable grandfather. A true role model for me!”

“Though all was well with my family and the environment I grew up in, I was always concerned with insecurity, injustice and inequality surrounding me. It might sound strange, but as a teenage girl I was concerned with the neighborhood kids not having good quality winter shoes that got wet after playing in the snow, or a family not having a gas stove to cook. Maybe this is the reason that the life made me choose this path.”

She criticizes the Soviet system for corruption that caused one to have “good connections” at grocery stores to buy such basics as butter, sugar and meat, as well as bribery to enter certain universities. “I failed the first year since my family did not pay. This is probably the main milestone in my life — injustice and inequality that I, as a 16-year old experienced in 1979 while entering university,” she said.

Responsibility for Piliposyan involves a “strong sense of not causing any harm to others.” Using driving as an example, she comments that “it has been extremely difficult to soothe down that terrible sense, and realize that everyone else around is equally responsible for the safe traffic on the roads. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this is a permanent feeling, a companion of my life.” Her charitable work also includes being a Rotarian, which has four chapters in Armenia.

What motivates her? “Life! Love!” she replied with no hesitation. Her bucket list includes traveling to new destinations, and contributing to her people. “Everyone has so much inner wealth to be shared. It is much easier to donate money, though I admire true philanthropists, I met at FAR abundantly. But, still, the most important and most difficult things are to give yourself and your time being there with single mothers, orphaned children, kids with special needs, and insecure elderly. I will continue doing whatever is within my capacities for the betterment of my Hayastan and its people.”