Following the July graduation ceremony for the second cohort of John Galt School seminars in Armenia, Gor Badalyan launched Ayn Rand Center Armenia (ARCA).
Gor is himself an alumnus of the John Galt School (JGS) in Georgia, and over the past two years he has been running another organization in Armenia, The Breath of Liberty. Through The Breath of Liberty, he has organized and hosted two John Galt Schools. The cohort from this most recent JGS comprised 21 active-minded students who took part in eight day-long seminars. Their testimonials were recorded and can be viewed on ARCA’s Facebook page.
At the JGS graduation ceremony, Gor announced Ayn Rand Center Armenia’s first program: “Summer Book Club in Nature.” Book club meetings take the form of picnics, during which students discuss select essays and works by Ayn Rand that they have read in advance. The announcement was well received by the JGS students and the book club was filled within weeks.
Once Armenian universities are back in session, Gor plans to launch the program “Hello Objectivism” at Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Philosophy. This program will introduce Objectivism to 70-100 of YSU’s philosophy students and will be taught by Objectivist teachers from within the Prometheus Network. Gor plans to scale this program to five other Armenian universities within the next year.
Advancing Objectivism among these students is a significant step in furthering the liberty movement in Armenia. The country is rich in natural resources and, following the example of neighboring Georgia, has relaxed laws on financial investments and lowered tax rates, motivating Armenian emigrants to increase investment in their native country. However, there is still a lot of work to be done. Through exposure to Ayn Rand’s ideas for freedom and flourishing, Armenian students will be better equipped to take on that work.
I am personally very excited to see the progress of Gor’s projects and their potential impact on this small country and its resilient people. Prometheus Foundation wishes him and his students the very best premises for their continued dissemination of Objectivism in Armenia.
