Kyle’s Journey in Armenia

16 days with some of the brightest Armenian students I’ve met, internationals from 5 countries, and a few hours of sleep every night defined International Outreach Camp (IOC) for me. IOC is an international program focusing on Civic Leadership for 18-25 year olds. I was a teacher at the camp, and I can only say it was an experience like none other!

The camp was a combination of classes (Civics, Country Studies and Sharing Cultures), all taught in English. It was designed to teach promising students the values of civic leadership, volunteering, critical thinking skills and appreciation for other cultures, while developing English speaking abilities. The camp was made possible through the help of 12 Peace Corps volunteers, 15 Armenian civic leaders, and the International Outreach Coalition. I think we accomplished all of our goals!

The camp itself was a wonderful experience. Ani, my Armenian co-teacher, and I taught a course called Country Studies. We analyzed the situations in the breakaways of Abkhazia and Kosovo to answer, “what makes a country?” and, “why are there breakaways?” The class was very successful in my eyes and I think the students learned a lot. We ended the 8-day course with our capstone experience, in which students invented their own country! It was very exciting to see the students use what they’d learned to make their own countries, complete with flags, histories, ethnic groups, religions and political systems. We surprised them further on the last day by randomly assigning several students to “break away” from their created state.

The students rounded out the week with excursions to various Armenian cultural sites, cultural presentations from our international students (representing Georgia, Russia, Lithuania and Turkey), a talent show and enumerable team cheers and events. The camp really showcased some of the amazing talent and potential Armenian youth have, and has re-motivated me for my second year of Peace Corps service. So much, in fact, that I have joined the Core Design Team for next year’s IOC camp, which I’m very excited about!!

It would be difficult to explain everything that happened at IOC, so instead I published our daily newsletters from the camp, which include daily summaries, articles from campers and staff, and a lot of interesting information about Armenia. I recommend you check them out:

Newsletters and pictures. I recommend the articles in day 9 and day 10, as they are a great end of camp reflection (I also have an article about my class in day 10’s).

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