With this article, and others to follow, TorontoHye presents community women who have become accomplished personalities by achieving goals that have made them leaders in their respective fields.
By Ani Hotoyan-Joly
In April 2020, I became one of the 62 Founding Visionaries of The Prosperity Project, which was founded by Pamela Postian Jeffery. The Prosperity Project is a not-for-profit organization created to ensure COVID19 does not eliminate the progress made by women during the last 40 years in Canada.
Of the 62 Founding Visionaries, three are Armenian women; Pamela Postian Jeffery, Diane Kazarian and me. The Founding Visionaries, Visionaries and the rest of The Prosperity Project’s supportive community of staff and volunteers are working hard to help women succeed and prosper in their own communities.
Successful Armenian women are everywhere, in all industries and businesses across Canada, in Armenia and around the world. You might be asking yourself, what makes a woman successful? Success is very personal. A woman in the executive ranks, an entrepreneur and a stay home mother could all be successful. You measure your own success according to your own terms and values, but generally speaking, you are successful if you are happy, safe, healthy and loved. You experience success every day as you reach your goals and objectives in your life, however you define those to be.
Armenian women and mothers have the added responsibility of ensuring their children have a strong Armenian foundation. We do this, when it is available to us, by sending our children to Armenian schools, going to Armenian churches and enrolling them in Homenetmen or other community based children’s and youth organizations. Each of these institutions has a role to play in protecting our language, faith and culture and instilling “Armenianism” in our children, which deepens and strengthens our children’s connection to our history and heritage.
The Armenian communities in Canada and around the world have the responsibility to ensure that Armenian women and girls are supported and are set up for success because as we say at The Prosperity Project, when women succeed, we all prosper!