Classes with Cam

” My name is Cameron Adrian but everyone calls me Cam. I’m a 1/4 Armenian and my family comes from Van (vanetsi). I’m visiting Armenia for the 3rd time and every opportunity i get to travel, I think about how much this country means to me and my identity. I’m only 24 but I’m thankful to have traveled a lot for my age, and i think it has helped me to become more sympathetic, patient, and overall a strong communicator. I’m finishing my masters degree for school counseling therapy this year and hope to come back in the summer of 2023.” – told Cam

Today our guest was Cam. He has come by ” Birthright Armenia” program.

(“The program: Birthright Armenia connects Armenian diasporan with volunteering opportunities for generally 3 months. My sites are the Botanical Garden and Mkhitar Sebastatsi where I work with english teachers and provide career counseling (9-12 graders) as well as leading discussions on varying interesting topics. I really enjoy the school as the students are very warm and friendly, and the teachers are hardworking and genuine individuals who seem passionate about helping students get a quality education. I look forward to volunteering here 3 times a week, and I wish I could stay longer to really understand the differences between back home in the US vs here in Yerevan. I know this experience is one I will look back on fondly in the future, and I hope the students of Mhiktar feel the same!” )
 and has started to do workshops with us, which are helpful both for his future profession and for us for developing our speaking skills, especially since he is a native speaker. So today was my first participation in that program. He started the lesson by asking some questions waiting for our answers. We started answering. One answer, two answers, three, four, and the communication was already ready. We discussed a lot of topics, which were so important, especially at our age. Talks about our rights, families, friends, relationships, surroundings, motivation and so on. During these discussions, there were a lot of opposite opinions, and that is normal. I think that these discussions can help us to learn to listen to each other at first, then not interrupt our friend’s speech, to respect each other, and never try to convince them to change their opinions. But anyway. This program is very helpful and everything is organized as well as possible. We have a great opportunity to meet a foreign person, who has other thoughts, who is from another culture, who lives in another, very different environment, has another way of living, and generally is different. This program lets us have foreign friends, to communicate with them, and nobody knows how much will grow up our communication level. Maybe we all will be friends. So thank you for creating this kind of lesson, and thank you Cam for listening and sharing viewpoints with us.