BELMONT, Mass.—Nick Pittman, a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia, will give a talk titled “Grassroots Development in Armenia: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned,” on Jan. 18, 2018, at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center (395 Concord Ave., Belmont, Mass. 02478).
The program will be the first in 2018 in the NAASR/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues.
In this presentation, Pittman will discuss his experience working for the last year-and-a-half as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer with a small, grassroots NGO in rural Armenia. He will highlight the challenges engaging in such intercultural work (such as linguistic barriers and different conceptions of planning) and how they can be addressed; discuss opportunities for new community projects in Armenia; describe the lessons he has learned in the course of his work; and outline the various grassroots projects Peace Corps volunteers are assisting throughout the country.
Pittman grew up in Cambridge, Mass., studied economics at Reed College, and worked for a few years in environmental and economic consulting before going to Armenia with the U.S. Peace Corps in March 2016. He lives in a rural village in the Lori marz (region) and works with a small local NGO as a community and youth development volunteer, helping his coworkers develop and implement projects focused on youth empowerment and assisting the NGO in organizational development.
For more information about this program, contact NAASR at 617-489-1610 or hq@naasr.org.
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Our friend Nick Pittman, US Peace Corps Volunteer, has worked with community and youth development in rural Armenia for the past year and a half, and we have witnessed his enthusiasm, command of the Armenian language, hard work, and impact on the lives of many villagers especially young people. I am looking forward to hearing his presentation at NAASR. Please come and get inspired!