Yerevan /Mediamax/. Teach For Armenia (TFA) Educational Foundation will be accepting applications for the Leadership Development Program until April 30.

The program selects Teacher-Leaders and assigns them to positions in rural communities of Armenia and Artsakh, where they work with children, encourage them, and help them discover their own potential.

On April 27, the Futures Studio organized an online meeting with founder and CEO Larisa Hovannisian. She has told that she joined the Teach for America program years ago to do something good and useful, although she was not a teacher by profession. Larisa worked at a school in Arizona for two years, which enhanced her understanding of the importance of her work in the children’s lives as well as her own. After the two years that Larisa describes as “a wonderful journey full of challenges”, she decided to move to Armenia and establish a similar program here.

Interviews | 2017-09-25 10:18:20

Larisa Hovannisian: “The State should prioritize every child”

Teach For Armenia was born in 2015, through many difficulties, with the help of “14 other crazy people”. Now, the program has around 100 teachers in Armenia and Artsakh.

“We are building a talent network, not combating the shortage of teachers in schools, although we do cooperate with the Ministry of Education. We work with marz administrations and schools to establish a new generation of Teacher-Leaders, who will take on the challenges of public education for two years.

Many of our alumni now do really interesting work and hold positions that impact the education system. This impact might not be seen at the moment, but I hope that in 10 years it will become clear that decisions are made at the systemic level, which protects the equal right of all children to education and ensures that educational inequality will no longer be a problem in Armenia,” said Larisa Hovhannisyan.