In Armenia, Zartonk Academy Staff getting warmed up!
One bright Montreal winter day in late November of 2021, AAF board member Sheila Terjanian of Ottawa put us in contact with Anna Demerjian in sunny Florida. As they say, the rest is history. Anna helped us steer the Zartonk Academy program towards Artsakh. Her many contacts and past experience in Armenia and Artsakh enabled us to add several interested collaborators for what would become Zartonk Academy in Artsakh: Resilience Through Music.
Today we met for the first time in downtown Yerevan to finalize the last few details before heading out to an inseparable part of Armenian history and culture: the land known as Artsakh. A country that only two years ago underwent an attempted ethnic cleansing by our unfortunate neighbours who continue their rampage against Armenians simply because they have not been put to justice by the international community, simply because we Armenians did not protect this hard-earned piece of territory and depended on others to do so for us.
We are going to Artsakh this weekend to get Zartonk started! What will await us? What discoveries will we make?