CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—This year’s Annual Meeting of the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA) will take place on ZOOM on Thursday, June 10, 2021. The evening will begin at 7:00 pm with guest speaker Dr. Lorky Libaridian of the Cambridge Health Alliance speaking about COVID-19 in the Sister Cities of Cambridge and Yerevan. The annual business meeting will commence at 8:00 p.m. for CYSCA members and others who wish to become CYSCA members.
Please register for the virtual meeting by June 9 to receive a link to the ZOOM meeting. To register and for more information, email info@cambridgeyerevan.org
A graduate of Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Lorky Libaridian completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Rochester, New York. She is the medical director for performance improvement in primary care at Cambridge Health Alliance. Dr. Libaridian completed a fellowship in innovation supported by the Gold Foundation. Her work and research interests include improving chronic disease management, pediatric well care and vaccination. She is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Libaridian’s experience in healthcare in Armenia spans several decades and has focused on education and training of family medicine residents as well as practicing primary care physicians using group and problem based participatory methods. During this past year, she trained healthcare workers on how to tackle COVID-19 and worked on public health and mental health initiatives in Armenia.
The mission of the CYSCA is to foster friendship, mutual trust and dynamic interaction between the peoples of Cambridge and Yerevan as well as their neighboring regions; to build links between them; to promote public awareness of issues of mutual concern; and to appreciate and accommodate the various manifestations of diversity in these communities.
Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association, Inc. (CYSCA) was the brainchild of a group of concerned citizens of Cambridge, MA, who believed they could help promote world peace by organizing a grassroots movement through a partnership with a city in a Soviet republic. In May 1986, former mayor and City Councilor Frank Duehay led a mission of 11 Cambridge citizens to Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia, to present a formal proposal to the Mayor of Yerevan expressing the desire of the city of Cambridge to become a sister city with Yerevan. Following an exchange of official delegations and signing of protocols, a formal agreement was executed between the two sister cities in 1987, during an official visit by a Yerevan delegation to Cambridge. Soon thereafter, CYSCA joined Sister Cities International (SCI), an umbrella organization that supports over 1000 U.S. sister cities and their foreign partners. Through its association with SCI, CYSCA has obtained funding support for many of its important projects.
CYSCA’s numerous projects have included Community Connections (a professional exchange program operated by USAID through which CYSCA participated 19 times during 12 years in fields as diverse as social work, university administration, tourism, business, environment, public health, aviation, and theater management as well as numerous student exchange programs); support to scores of schools in Armenia since 1994 through The Eva and Jack Medzorian Armenia School Aid Project (formerly the Armenia School Aid Project); hosting five delegations, during the last eight years, of emerging young leaders in various fields through the congressionally-sponsored Open World program to expose participants from Armenia to the American system of participatory democracy and free enterprise; and frequent participation in the Cambridge Science Festival.
CYSCA membership is open to those who support the purposes of the Association and pay annual dues ($25 individual, $50 family and $10 student). The 2021-2022 membership year began on April 1, 2021. Please send a check to “CYSCA” to CYSCA Treasurer, P.O. Box 382591, Cambridge, MA 02238.
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