B-S N-G-O

During our orientation we were warned about feeling frustrated with the way things are run and having to decide how to handle situations in which if we stay quiet and dutifully do what we're asked, the problems won't go away, but if we try to change the way things are, we'll probably be met with resistance. When we were first told about this, I thought, "well that's not unique to Armenia, and I've definitely come out of situations like that without much trouble." But after my interactions on Tuesday with the supervisor of the other organization I volunteer for, I can easily say things here won't go so smoothly.

I wrote before of how many NGOs have too broad a mission for them to reasonably fulfill and that's definitely the case with this organization. Just as some background, starting an NGO in Armenia is not nearly as difficult as it is in the U.S., as opposed to starting a small business here, which is apparently much harder to do. For that reason, there are a huge number of NGOs and in many cases, people use NGOs to make money as an alternative to fighting through all the red tape of starting a small business. Thankfully, the organization that I and another volunteer teach English through is not one of these cases.

However, the person who runs it is in many ways incompetent and a serious hindrance to her own purported mission. For example over lunch the other day she remarked how it is embarrassing that even though her organization is centered on teaching English to children, she herself does not know English. Though her office is covered in framed certificates (very Garden State-esque but mostly with things like recognition of participation and thank you cards), she isn't exactly qualified to fulfill her own organization's mission. And for the most part it's not a huge problem-- the other people who work there are very dedicated, the kids all really want to learn, and there are plenty of volunteers even outside of Birthright who are willing to put in their time teaching. But when a volunteer is actively teaching a lesson and the head of the organization pulls them away from the kids so that the volunteer can teach her the words to Bingo Was His Name-o so that when she later pulls all the students in to mindlessly repeat words whose meaning they have no clue about, she can pretend to know the English, there's definitely a problem. This woman will put in 5 minutes here and there to "teach" the kids or "advise" her volunteers when actually all she does is interrupt. I think the best thing she can do for her organization is sit in her office all day and frame her certificates. Meanwhile, speaking a rather basic level of Armenian, there is little I can do to prevent the wasted time besides pretend I don't know what she's saying and continue on in the lesson.

And then there's the Healthy Centre. Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting one very special patient named Hovhannes. He has cerebral palsy, but is incredibly high-functioning. He comes to the Centre for physical therapy and when my supervisor told me about him, I really didn't know what to expect from the therapy side of things. I was blown away at the work Naira was able to do with him and the clear progress being made. As soon as he came in she put him on the treadmill and showed him how to walk more properly, which he could emulate for a couple minutes at a time. She then helped him learn how to flex his right foot, which he doesn't do on his own at all right now. After he got used to me being there, he made a good amount of joked for a four-year-old and spent a lot of time laughing with us. When he was on the treadmill, Naira would periodically speed it up enough for him to run and since he was holding onto the bars, he could run without the fear of falling. It was incredible to see how happy it made him to run, something he can't safely do without holding on to someone's hand, and something he clearly doesn't have much opportunity to do. It felt so good to see how much tangible, obvious good this tiny NGO in the backroads of Gyumri could do, and I'm incredibly happy to be able to help them to the best of my ability.

Today they presented me the next project they want me to work on that they are very serious about developing-- a sexual education program for the universities and institutes. The depth with which they had developed their plan and the thought they put into choosing their next big project was almost surprising. I had told them that before I left I wanted to discuss with them the specifics of how they planned to proceed for the next five or so years and today I realized that they have already mapped out the next 10 or so in such a thoughtful manner, I don't see a way in which they won't achieve their lofty goals. There is something to be said about the dreams that come out of a renovated garage at the end of a road that takes 2 minutes to walk but, due to potholes, about 5 to drive.