A Future Worth Belonging to: Anna and Noubar Afeyan’s Mission in Armenia

What unfolded was like nothing else in Noubar’s career — watching the trials return with effective rates of 94 percent, working with the United States military, and receiving phone calls from world leaders.

He said: “It’s remarkable how people get your cell phone, if they need to. I was getting calls from various government heads, from global church heads, from various kings. Quite remarkable.”

While Noubar pursued science entrepreneurship, Anna focused her energies on raising their large family and championing science education, holding strong to the Swedish values at the roots of her upbringing. For more than 20 years, Anna has supported foundations and schools around the world to expand STEM accessibility and equity. Currently, Anna serves on the board of Beacon Academy in Boston, preparing motivated students from communities with limited resources to succeed in competitive high schools, colleges, and careers. She said, “They want to learn, they want to move places. But, as we know, in Boston education is not the same for all.”

Anna is not a typical trustee in that she came to the board via the classroom. “I became friends with someone who was working there, and they lost their science teacher, and she said, ‘Can you jump in and do it for a semester or so?’ I ended up doing it for 8 years.” Anna’s robust chemical engineering background and passion for student advocacy equipped her to assume teaching responsibilities. This experience informs Anna’s perspective on the challenges, stakes, and rewards of enhancing STEM equity in Armenia.

Together, Noubar and Anna are deeply involved in securing a better future for Armenia. Since 2000, the Afeyans have engaged in an astonishing scope of Armenian development work. Noubar explained, “We co-founded a number of socio-economic development projects, including an eco-tourism cluster near Tatev Monastery in the south of Armenia, an international school in Dilijan, healthcare projects, science/technology projects, and others.”

Anna jumped in, reflecting on their foundation’s recently announced launch of the Afeyan Initiatives for Armenia (AIFA). “We are doing so many projects in Armenia that we decided to set up an on-the-ground organization,” she noted. After the recent capture of Artsakh by Azerbaijan, the Afeyans committed $2 million to support the displaced Armenian refugees, including grants to Children of Armenia Fund (COAF). Noubar was honored by COAF in 2015 with a Save the Generation Award at its 12th Annual Holiday Gala. Recently, the Afeyans also launched the Armenian Spiritual Revival Foundation to address mental health traumas produced by the war and its consequences. “COAF really fits in well, because it’s young people. It’s education,” Anna explained. “We know that young people are going to change the world. It’s not us.”

Noubar echoed Anna’s point: “Our guiding light in everything we’ve done in Armenia is that we consider our clients to be 5-year-olds in Armenia. We do not hold ourselves accountable to any government or any adult.”

For Noubar, the adults of Armenia are preoccupied with the present, because they are pressed into managing a very difficult geopolitical situation. “They’re making choices, survival choices today. And yet, you really need kids to be thought of, because that’s the future of the country. So I’d say, we think we’re working on important things, and other people may be working on urgent things,” he said.

The “important things” that Noubar has in mind are those that nurture the inner and outer worlds of Armenian children, including their connection to the Diaspora, and the meaning of that connection to broader Armenian identity. “I’d like it to be that a young Armenian kid identifies with a young Armenian in Canada,” he remarks. Recalling the writing of William Saroyan, Noubar offers a reflection on the puzzle of Armenian consciousness. “On this topic, Saroyan’s view of the world was that it comprised stateless nations. He considered nationhood, not statehood, and that there are people in the world that identify with common values, common history, common traits, and he thought, Armenians just like that could exist anywhere and everywhere.”

Anna, though Swedish through and through, has no small stake in the future of Armenia. “It’s very natural for me to understand the importance of keeping Armenianness. Sweden is there. It’s not going anywhere. It’s 10 million people. It’s fine. It’s safe. There are little things here and there, but nothing like Armenia. Armenia needs to keep its culture, because cultural identity is really important. My kids have one foot in each right? They speak Swedish fluently, but they grew up in the Armenian church with Armenian dance. It’s really important for their identity,” she said.

For Anna, her relationship with the Armenian experience has changed much since those early years when she introduced Noubar and his two brothers to her clan of strong Swedish women. In those days, Armenian music was as foreign to her as Swedish nature walks were to Noubar. Now, it surrounds her and fills her home. “I was just on the Cape, and my third daughter had her friends there, and I’m going to the pool, and it’s all Armenian music — it’s like dance music. It’s just fun to see, you know, and they feel the attachment to the culture, to each other, and to the country. So that’s a great thing. You need to belong. So many people don’t belong.”

The Children of Armenia Fund is proud to work alongside partners like the Afeyans to safeguard the next chapter in the Armenian story.

(This article was originally published on coaf.org by the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF). COAF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the lives of children in rural Armenia through a holistic approach to education, healthcare, child and family care, and economic development. COAF has helped over 100,000 beneficiaries expand their universe so that they can shape a brighter future.)