2/17/12 | Emily Dewhirst | Peace Corps Volunteer | Knoville, Tennesse
What it Means to Volunteer

What it Means to Volunteer

I came to Armenia a month ago, not because I am of Armenian background, but because I wanted to be involved with the positive growth of rural children somewhere in the world where children do not have the opportunities I had while growing up. {read more}

2/8/12 | Lily Abagyan | Filmmaker | California
How to Save a Generation: Healthcare
How to Prevent and Treat Venomous Bites
Part 3 of 5

Video 3: How to Prevent and Treat Venomous Bites

Finding a neatly packaged “how to” topic for healthcare was a challenge, but I knew that I had to incorporate COAF’s extensive work in this field, particularly because the imagery of the pre-renovation clinics is so visceral. {read more}

11/23/11 | Lily Abagyan | Filmmaker | California
How to Save a Generation: Agriculture
How to Make Peach Preserves
Part 2 of 5

Video 2: How to Make Peach Preserves 
The day we made this video was one of my favorite days of our entire two weeks, in spite of the fact that getting all the details aligned was an arduous process. I chose to make this video because fruit preservation is such a vital part of life in Armenia. It may seem self-evident, but it takes living there to realize the impact of not having the freedom to purchase whatever you want whenever you want. (Or if you’re living in the city, at a manageable price.) You start to reminisce about the last time you ate each fruit of that season, and what a pity that you didn’t eat more. Then winter comes, plates become heavy with rice and potatoes, and people begin to open their pickled vegetables and jams. They save the dried fruit for New Year’s weeklong celebration. {read more}

Video 1: How to Sing the Armenian Alphabet Song 
My first taste of the Armavir region of Armenia was in the summer of 2009. I found Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) while browsing the internet one day, and felt compelled to contact the organization thanks to the particularly riveting image on their homepage: a young boy gazing out from behind a fur hood with picture-perfect Armenian eyes. That August, I volunteered as a production assistant during the shooting of A Bloom in the Desert, a film about COAF’s work. Since then, I have visited the children of these remote villages time and time again to both document and get acquainted with their lives. This year, I had the privilege of returning to Armenia to develop and shoot a video project of my own about COAF’s initiatives. {read more}