Today, Ilona is the single head of her family, with her children aged 18, 15, and 8 in Yerevan. Varduhi, her eldest daughter carries in a chocolate cake topped with chocolate glaze, nicely cut in plates and a pot of tea, while her mother can’t stop telling her story. Varduhi is in the 9th grade in Yerevan, although she is elder than her classmates. She had to learn Armenian writing and reading first, but she is happy at school. She likes to style hair and proudly shows beautiful pictures of different plaits she has braided. The 15 year-old boy has seen a lot of violence in Syria and he still suffers from its consequences. Nevertheless, he makes efforts to attend the local school. The youngest child is an 8-year-old boy. The boy keeps petting the guest-dog that they are taking care of on behalf of a friend. The dog shall travel soon to the United States.

“Finding a job with a decent payment is a struggle for me. In the studio that I am working in now, no specific work is assigned to me. I am doing everything there, from cleaning to sewing and cooking. I work 11 hours a day and six days a week, and get paid 3000 Armenian Drams (about 6 Euro) per day, which is very little for the life in Yerevan. Some organizations help us to pay the rent for our apartment, which is higher than my monthly salary. Without them it would have been impossible for us to stay here,” Ilona says with a deep sigh, looking down at the floor.

„I like to focus on positive things“

Rita, 28, also came to Armenia from Syria. She has curly short hair, wears jeans and comfortable shoes, rides a bicycle, and works as an event manager at a local communications company. Rita does not like to be called „a refugee“. She is an Armenian and she is now in Armenia. Upon her wish, Anna, the project leader changed the title of the exhibition from „refugees“ to „newcomers“.

Rita had to complete her studies in Yerevan. „It was very difficult. I realized how different eastern Armenian dialect is from the western one. My classmates were much younger than I. Girls always came to school as if right after hair-dresser’s, using lots of make-up and wearing high heels. Theories were much different from what I had learned, and the way of teaching as well. However, people around me were always supportive,“ she explains. In parallel to her studies she worked full-time to support herself living with her uncle’s family. She managed to graduate from the Armenian State University of Economics and even convinced her brother and sister to join her in Armenia.

„I like to focus on positive things! I get frustrated from hearing news about wars in Syria and elsewhere but I try to find positive things around me. For instance, the beautiful spring weather today and seeing some people cycling in the city makes me feel happy!“ she says pointing at the sunlight coming through the window, as if impatiently looking forward to be outside.

No matter how hard she tries to focus on the positive, she cannot close her eyes to some other things. „Women here are very pretty, well educated, working hard but accepting too much unfairness. They shouldn’t. We, women should change the way we treat and accept ourselves first, stand up for ourselves, and not tolerate unfairness,“ Rita says.

Rita wishes to see everyone happy around her. „Everyone has a choice. I do not believe it when people say they have no choice. Every person can make at least a small change in his or her life and surrounding. If we sit and complain, who will make the change?“ she asks. Rita seems to be happy in Yerevan but sometimes she wishes to speed-up everything, to have more events to manage, to see more friendly smiling and she would like to hear more often the sentence „I am doing well!“, which she finds a rarity in Armenia.

„It is time to act!“

„There are over 17 000 Syrian refugees in Armenia and more are coming every week. They represent valuable human capital to the emerging economy of Armenia and bring much needed cultural diversity to this mono ethnic country,“ states Anna Kamay, the project leader. Some of them find jobs, some of them create jobs, some of them barely make their ends meet, some of them leave the country. „It is time to act! Refugees with better social and economic capital are choosing to migrate elsewhere, leaving the poor and vulnerable to face further hardships in Armenia and making integration for all more difficult.“