ESC: History Museum of Armenia

The History Museum of Armenia was founded in 1919 by the Parliament Law of the First Republic of Armenia. It is entrusted with a national collection of c. 400,000 objects and it presents the rare traces of cultural interrelations of the Armenian Highland and the countries of the Ancient East (Egypt, Mitany, the Hittite Kingdom, Assyria, Iran, the Seleucid State), Rome and the Byzantine Empire. For many years the museum collaborated with Armenian colleges and QSI International School within the program "Know Your Country", organize guided tours for the children of border regions, and elaborate new projects to popularize the history, culture and art. The experience of working with the local volunteers and with foreign visitors became a great start for the museum staff to think about including foreign volunteers in the museum's daily work and routine. The European volunteers will eventually bring with them new fresh and interesting ideas, new "games" and interactive excursion ideas, new culture, new language and just love and joy, while supporting the organization of multiple activities and different workshops for the visitors (especially for the youngest visitors of the museum). The main aim of the project is to give to an volunteer the opportunity to expand his/her personal and professional horizons while learning and contributing to the activities of The History Museum of Armenia. The volunteer will work with the local community. Apart from working with the guests of different age groups, he/she will have the possibility to spend his/her free time with them and to learn a lot about the Armenian culture. The History Museum of Armenia has experience on working with local volunteers, as students from different Armenian universities take part in different events to help the staff to organize meetings, museum holidays and special programs. The experience of working with the local volunteers and with foreign visitors became a great start for the museum staff to think about including foreign volunteer in the museum's daily work and routine. The volunteer will assist the staff of the History Museum of Armenia, who does not always have enough capacity to run different activities and participate in the promotion of their activities. This will allow the staff to collect visitors’ feedback which will be helpful in the development of the museum's future. In fact the museum needs a creative volunteer to help to organize new innovative events at the Museum, including digital treasure hunts, tools like Kahoot and more. The volunteer will be involved in all programs and will be encouraged to propose his/her own ideas and suggestions, mostly working on promotion and training activities with the freedom and valuable inputs to create her/his own initiatives. The project aims are also to: - improve the volunteer's active participation in the society and leadership skills: by enabling her/him to reflect on tasks she/he implements and the results she/he achieves inside the project. The volunteer will be given independence in implementing the projects and activities, which will enable her/him to develop her/his sense of responsibility and pro-activity and hence the competitive advantage in the labor market; - improve the volunteer's command of foreign languages and contribute to the notion of learning as a whole. By learning a new language (Armenian) and practicing Russian the volunteer will be able to also acquire tools of teaching languages in non-formal/semi-formal way and to improve her/his ability to provide information; - raise awareness of different cultures and nations, on European values and common concepts: the volunteer will live and work in a completely different environment with somehow different social protocols. The emerging in a culture different from her/his own and understanding this process will enable the volunteer to reflect on the notion of culture and to be more open to the challenges and differences it has to it. By bringing together young people from different cultures and with different background, it will be possible to build a more inclusive society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality prevail. This project can be an inspiring and empowering experience for young people who want to help, learn and develop and who knows maybe this experience will be a life change step for the volunteer, who will decide to connect his life with the learning of history, with museology or will devote his life to the protection of the historical and cultural heritage in the conflict zones. In the atmosphere of mutual respect and trust all the main goals of the project can be achieved. And even after finishing the project the volunteers’ impact in the host organisation will be remembered.