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AURORA GRANTS

Through the Aurora Grants, the descendants of the Armenian Genocide survivors seek to honor the memory of their ancestors’ saviors by supporting educational initiatives and preserving Armenian heritage and history while promoting humanitarian efforts and Armenian history.

FROM 2015 TO APRIL 2021 $7,8 MILLION HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED THROUGH THIS PROGRAM

HUMANITARIAN PROJECTS $3,9 MILLION

EDUCATIONALPROJECTS $1,9 MILLION

ARMENIAN MEMORY ACT $2 MILLION

Among the educational projects are the scholarship named after Vardan Gregorian (research grants), which supports young scientists studying Armenian history of the 20th century, and the “Young Aurora”, which encourages student programs that offer sustainable solutions to humanitarian problems. The scholarships provided by “Aurora” have allowed 62 at-risk youths to study through the United World Colleges network and the American University of Armenia. The program has Individual scholarships include those named after Lamya Haji Bashar (awarded to Yazidi students), Amal Clooney (awarded to a female Lebanese student with a strong interest in human rights), and Charles Aznavour (awarded to students from France or French-speaking countries). The Vartan Gregorian Scholarship (for research grants) for early career researchers of 20th Century Armenian history has also been given to four recipients as a part of the Aurora Grants.

 

The Aurora Grants Program helps to raise awareness of humanitarian activities by supporting initiatives helping disadvantaged communities. In 2020, the Initiative paid tribute to New York City’s COVID-19 heroes by donating $100,000 USD to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC. A US$50,000 grant was awarded to the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, founded by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.

 

With the Memory Act project, “Aurora” grants are provided also to Matenadaran, the scientific research institute of ancient manuscripts, and to the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, contributing to the preservation of Armenian culture and historical heritage.
The 2020 initiative awarded the Matenadaran a $10,000 grant to create a digital library and introduce a main online gallery. It is expected that this will allow Matenadaran to have at least 1,000,000 virtual visitors per year.
In addition, with Aurora’s support, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute was able to republish Aurora Mardiganyan’s memoirs “Ravished Armenia” in English and Armenian, including an additional 20 pages of references and explanatory notes.

Aurora Grants embody the concepts of Gratitude in Action and Second Chances Today, focusing on the future (scholarships) and the past (preservation of history).

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Dear Visitor,

We are glad you are interested in the activities of the IDeA Foundation.

On this platform, you can learn about two-decades long thought, passion, commitment and hard work — all in pursuit of a more prosperous Armenia. The road has been long and reflections many. But we managed to achieve to a point where our work has left its mark on the lives of millions of people and we are really proud of it.

Our accomplishments are the fruit of a collective effort by hundreds of thousands of promoters and volunteers, tens of thousands of donors and supporters, hundreds of colleagues and dozens of founding partners. Together, we have shown what wonderous things can be achieved when people strive for realization of a common goal.

Allow our family, who was lucky enough to witness these remarkable achievements from the beginning, to express our sincere gratitude to numerous wonderful, caring, purposeful people and organizations that made all these achievements possible. We have the honor to present their successes and express our gratitude to them.

We have tried to present the key landmarks of our journey to a brighter Armenia, to chart the lessons learned, and some of the new approaches and initiatives they have forged — the 700 projects over the last 20 years.

We hope that learning about these works will be as pleasant for you as it is for us to tell about them.

But, more importantly, we would like to see you among those Armenians who will continue this path together with us in the future.

If a single community of like-minded people working towards the realization of a common vision of the future can achieve such a result, imagine what kind of changes can be made if the efforts of the entire nation were directed towards creation. Together we can dream.

And, together, we can make our dreams come true.

Thank You,

Ruben Vardanyan and Veronika Zonabend