New Director Nadjarian Sees Global Role for AIWA

Armenia will be her final stop. There used to be an affiliate there which never got going but now Nadjarian feels there is a good possibility for collaborating with the My Step Foundation of Anna Hakobyan, wife of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. AIWA always worked with the American University of Armenia (AUA) and the Women’s Support Center, but, Nadjarian said, now she wants to deepen AIWA’s work beyond just providing funding.

Among the programmatic areas being considered for the near future is a global mentorship program, an examination of domestic violence on a deeper level, not only in Armenia but in other Armenian communities around the world, and a conference in Armenia next year. Nadjarian is putting together a conference committee now which she wants to “work on a very different form of interaction among people, that will not only architect conversations but move those conversations to the next place, which could be architecting solutions or creating content which could be the basis of change for the future.” The conference, she said, would be an opportunity to bring the new membership to Armenia.

The membership of AIWA at present is under 500. Nadjarian finds this to be far too low for a global network of Armenian women. There are Armenian women’s Facebook sites with much larger memberships. She believes it should reach the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. Membership costs $50 annually or $1,000 for a lifetime. Nadjarian is focusing on bringing in younger people, and says, “So far, everyone wants to be a part of it. They are very excited about what is happening. In Armenia too, there are many young women, including the web graduates of our entrepreneurship program at AUA, which we founded many years ago, who are coming forward, as well as our scholarship recipients of the past.”

Nadjarian is also forming committees and subcommittees at various levels of engagement to bring people in on particular projects in which they have a vested interest.

AIWA, under Nadjarian, has a number of top goals for Armenian women. She said, “I would like an Armenian woman to be able to have access to absolutely anything that she needs and wants that is going to help her personally and professionally, with her own wellness, with her ability to economically advance and to be engaged as a citizen in her own awareness of her rights.”

Aside from access to information and opportunities, Nadjarian wants to break down barriers between Armenian women. “In building solidarity, we need to recognize that we have a long history of seeing each other as aligned by where we were born, where we socialize, where we immigrated from, what our education level is, what our income level is, and where we reside,” she explained.

The Velvet Revolution in Armenia, Nadjarian said, provides “shining examples of what can be accomplished through civic engagement…Everyone is paying attention to this movement in Armenia…The Diaspora has been criticized, rightfully so, for telling Armenia how to do things. We have a lot to learn from them about this revolution.” She pointed out that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation just announced a gender quota and though that might have been forced, the truth will become clear if everyone embraces this approach.

AIWA is in conversation with Girls of Armenia Leadership Soccer (GOALS), a program started in 2015 which began the first women’s soccer league in Armenia in 2016. AIWA would like to work together to bring Armenian girls in soccer in the US into this program. Nadjarian pointed out that “this is an example of something done in Armenia that shows a ripe opportunity to connect outside of Armenia and we should be the connecting tissue for that.” Another possible avenue of cooperation is working with the Girls in Tech chapter in Armenia, whose managing director, Seda Papoyan, is a graduate of a program sponsored by AIWA at AUA.

AIWA will continue to work at the United Nations as a nongovernmental organization with the Commission on the Status of Women, where AIWA holds five seats. This year’s priority themes include “social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”

Fundraising will be necessary to achieve many of AIWA’s long-term goals. Nadjarian said that the diasporan gala or banquet culture is both a blessing and a curse, noting, “There is a lot to be said for a celebratory event. They can be great but inevitably leave people out.”

She stressed that “from a fundraising point of view, the Armenian world has never really been good at it…We have this understanding that if I shake hands with someone who gives a million dollars, then I am a fundraiser. But really good fundraising is a mindset, how you see relationships. They take time and they take building trust and transparency.”

Nadjarian said that she is treating AIWA like a professional nonprofit, and building it so that in two or three years it will be running how a model nonprofit should be run. She noted that her board is very supportive. Nadjarian said, “Armenians are not good at accountability. Nobody wants to be the fall guy. I would rather have the accountability and be in the hotseat so that I can make real progress, rather than …inertia, hiding behind the board that makes the decisions.”

The 12-person AIWA board itself may undergo change soon, with a number of open seats coming up as older members withdraw. Right now it is all American, with a majority on the East Coast, but, Nadjarian said, in the future it may become international.