Short Documentary
“In Armenia We Have Learned to Live Differently”
Edition:
Entrepreneurship
Since the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011 around 17,000 Syrian refugees have moved to Armenia. Most of them are Christian Armenians who found asylum in what they felt was their fatherland, but little did they imagine, how hard it would become.
They had to start from zero as Armenia is very different from Syria, given the day-to-day habits, to the food, to how relations among people work. Lack of employment, expensive prices and high taxes add hardship to the cultural differences and some Syrian-Armenians decided to hit the road again. But this time leaving not Syria but Armenia.
Others decided to endure, stayed on, set up businesses. Adapting to the new environment and blending it with their own customs, the community somehow developed a sub-culture. One of the cultural challenges has been the role of women, in both the family and the society at large. In Syria, women are usually tasked with looking after the house and the children, in Armenia they had to open the door to the outside world and look for work as they needed to contribute to the household.
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