State saves millions of drams by cooperating with private organizations – Armenian Diaspora minister’s interview

The government, formed as a result of the velvet revolution, has brought new logic and agenda of the Armenia-Diaspora ties. There are new and positive moods in both the Republic and Diaspora, there are great expectations, and this should be turned into a tangible result.

Diaspora minister of Armenia Mkhitar Hayrapetyan gave an interview to ARMENPRESS, talking about the Armenia-Diaspora ties and the programs being implemented by the ministry.

-It’s nearly 3 months you are the minister of Diaspora. During your first days in office you have talked about the effectiveness of the expenditures of the programs. In this context several changes were made. What results can you talk about today?

-In terms of the expenditures, I think the greatest achievement was the launch of cooperation with private organizations. In general, I believe that the effective cooperation of the state and private sector based on trust, healthy partnership must become a reality.

Thanks to a joint partnership, a number of private companies, such as fast food service companies, restaurant, nature juice factory and etc, joined us for implementing the transition stage of “Ari Tun” (Come Back Home) program.

In order to organize and implement the Step Towards Home program, we started to cooperate with Teach for Armenia and Birthright Armenia educational organizations. The program’s educational part has been developed thanks to their efforts, and we signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Armenian-Russian Slavonic University which provides necessary amount of classrooms, conditions for lectures for free. The education process is headed by the specialists and teachers of the aforementioned organizations.

The ministry’s Neruzh (Potential) program also expands the number of supporters day by day.

Thanks to the cooperation with these organizations, the state first of all saves millions of drams, and secondly, we are putting a base of new cooperation culture based on new quality and mutual trust.

-From the first days of your tenure, you stated that repatriation is going to be one of the priorities of the ministry. Are there any programs on this path?

-The government, formed as a result of the velvet revolution, has brought new logic and agenda of the Armenia-Diaspora ties. There are new and positive moods both in the Republic and the Diaspora, as well as great expectations. Of course, all this should be turned into a tangible result. After the revolution hundreds of our compatriots returned to homeland or prepare their return, are interested in Armenia’s daily life, call, visit and send letters to us. The government’s program also clearly states that the repatriation is an important precondition for Armenia’s socio-economic development, improvement of demography, security and other processes.

The Diaspora ministry carries out legal and programmatic activities aimed at promoting repatriation. The international experience on state-Diaspora ties, the programs on organization of repatriation process and their integration is being examined. The Diaspora ministry’s Step Towards Home and Potential programs, of course, are directly linked with promoting repatriation.