Project Case Study

Aratta: Armenian Heritage in the North West

Aratta: Armenian Heritage in the North West takes a look at the lives of some of

the Armenian diaspora who have been making the region their home since the

mid-nineteenth century.

Fifteen people, aged from 22-66, recorded English language oral histories

interviews about their lives, experiences, family stories and memories. A food-

sharing event in Manchester’s Albert Square attracted 1,700 people and a portrait

exhibition ran at the city’s Central Library for six weeks.

Galina Baghishyan-Manders, 43, contributed one of the oral histories interviews.

An ethnic Armenian, she was living in Azerbaijan when war broke out between

the two neighbouring countries. In 1986, aged, 11, Galina was airlifted to

Armenia.

Now married to an English man, she lives in Worsley, Greater Manchester, where

she works as an accountant.

“It was horrible”, she says. “I’ve still got really bad memories about that. I

remember the day that we left. My father bought us tickets for the plane….They

were selling those tickets three times more expensive, I remember that. But they

were priceless. At the time no one was looking at the price as long as you get

those tickets just to be out, to be safe.

“I remember that night on the plane – people had no dedicated seats. They were

sitting and standing like on the tram. On two seats there will be four people

sitting. It was dangerous, everyone realised that, but there was no other option.”

Helen Drummond, another interviewee, grew up in West Didsbury, Manchester,

in the 1970s, attending the local Cavendish Community Primary School. During

her interview she recalls memories of her Armenian grandfather, who lived in

nearby Northenden. Towards the end of his life he began to hint at the atrocities

he had witnessed during the Turkish capture of Smyrna.

“Grandad Mezbourian used to have quite a lot of melancholy spells when he

used to just go and play the piano,” she says. “My mum was led to believe that

was to do with missing his mother. It was only afterwards, as he was coming to

the end of his life that he said ‘go to the library and find out what you can about

the Armenians.’ It’s only after that and reading what he wrote on a trip he made to

Armenia in 1922, that we’ve realised he saw some terrible things in the burning of

Smyrna.”

How the project came about

When Armenian national Zara Hakobyan paid her first visit to Manchester’s Central

Library in 2015, shortly after she moved to the city, she was surprised how little

information she could find about the history of the region’s Armenian community.

Zara was aware that Armenians had been resident in Manchester for almost two

centuries, with the UK’s first Armenian Church founded in 1870 on Upper Brook Street,

near Manchester Royal Infirmary.

But all she could find amongst the library’s special collections was a single book called

Merchants in Exile: the Armenians in Manchester, England, 1835-1935. Written in the

1960s, the tome stopped short of offering up the kind of contemporary personal stories

and understanding Zara was hoping to discover.

With a strong academic background, Zara knew she was well placed to carry out some

research of her own. And after meeting Jackie Ould, former director of the Ahmed Iqbal

Ullah Education Trust, at a BME Network event, Zara was persuaded to apply for some

National Lottery Heritage Fund (formerly HLF) funding in order to conduct her own oral

histories project.

How it went

Three months after submitting her funding bid, Zara was delighted to hear that

she had been awarded the full amount. The £56,700 grant received needed to

cover her own time as project manager, a paid volunteer coordinator and all other

expenses.

The timeline for the 14 month long project was to launch with a food event, then

to focus on recording the oral histories interviews and to close with a public

exhibition.

“I guess it starts to come together when you get the grant,” says Zara. “People

do not necessarily believe in you at first, but once you can show them you have

been awarded funding, they start to take interest and want to get involved.”

Zara set up her own CIC (Community Interest Company) to make the grant

application. “To apply for National Lottery Heritage Fund funding, you have to be

a not-for-profit organisation or a charity,” she says.

“I had never applied for any sort of funding before, and doing it on my own was a

bit tricky. I submitted an enquiry form to the NLHF and had a meeting with them

to discuss their guidelines. I also had a meeting with the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah

Education Trust, who pointed out a few key aspects to consider when applying

for a grant.

As project manager, Zara was responsible for every single aspect of the project,

including developing an activity plan, organising a food event, curating an

exhibition, recruiting staff, communications, running the payroll, controlling the

budget, volunteer training, community engagement and research.

“I worked full time for 13 months – officially about 40 hours a week, but in reality I

put a lot more time and effort into it,” she says.

Knowing that that food is a great catalyst for bringing people together, Zara

proposed to hold an Armenian food sharing event early on in the life of project,

When word of mouth started quickly gathering momentum, a new venue had to

be found at short notice as she realised they would be over capacity.

She says: “We originally planned to hold the event at GMCVO in Ardwick, but I

recognised that it was outgrowing the room I had booked.”

In the end, the Armenian food event took place outdoors in Manchester’s Albert

Square. Seven people cooked and a massive 1,700 people turned up to sample

free Armenian food, from vegan pastries to soups and stews.

“It was a fantastic day,” she says. “People from so many different cultures came

to enjoy the food and it felt amazing to be sharing a bit of Armenian life in the

centre of Manchester.”

The final exhibition also helped to raise the profile of the project and of the city’s

Armenian community. Large scale photographic portraits of the 15 interviewees

were displayed alongside text-based summaries of their recordings. The free

exhibition took place at Manchester’s Central Library from May-June 2019.

Project manager Zara was invited onto BBC Radio Manchester and to a local

community radio station to talk about the project.

Volunteer coordinator Jane Mason, who was employed part time, used volunteer

broker Macc as well as recruitment websites to find project volunteers. Jane’s

experience of working with volunteers informed her to over-recruit, in case of

drop outs.

“Amongst our volunteers we had several history students as well as people with a

personal interest in history,” she says. “Ideally we wanted people with research or

interviewing experience.”

The age range of the volunteers was 22-45.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jane only managed to recruit one Armenian volunteer, but

they ended up dropping out.

“Our Armenian volunteer was new to the UK, newly married, looking for paid work

and in the process of learning English. It turned out to be not the right time for

them to commit to the project,” she says.

With a target of 15 volunteers, Jane recruited nine, and of those, six stayed with

the project until the end.

Each went on to receive oral histories training and to record a number of

interviews.

Support from Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust

The Trust supported Zara when she was applying for National Lottery Heritage

Fund grant. The project was awarded the full amount requested first time.

At the start of the project, free oral histories training was provided to Zara. Later

on, project volunteers also benefitted from the training. Working closely with the

team at Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust ensured that all interviews collected

were produced to an archival format and quality.

According to Zara, the practical guidance offered to her was invaluable. “We were

advised on everything from which voice recorder to buy to the how our

permission forms should look,” she says.

“Our volunteers were offered library tours and shown around the archives so they

could gain a better understanding of archival materials.

“They also booked exhibition space for us at Central Library free of charge,” she

says.

Lessons learned

“My main learning point,” says Zara, “had to do with control of finances and

project administration.

“Initially, when planning the budget, it didn’t feel right to ask for additional money

to hire people to do tasks which I could do myself without any pay - for example

project accounting, running the payroll, reporting to HMRC and Companies

House.

“These tasks ended up being so time-consuming and labour-intensive and really

ate into family time. If I run another project, I would definitely outsource to an

accountant.”

Another tricky aspect of the project was building relationships with Armenian

community organisations.

Says Zara: “I really struggled to break through the hierarchical structure within the

community in order to engage people. I thought it would be easier to approach an

established institution within the community and to post in community groups to

tell people about the project and get them involved.

“It didn’t work; I failed to get them on side and I ended up having to make

individual approaches to people, which was much more time consuming than

being able to speak to a group.”

Another key learning point involved really getting to know the interviewees and

their stories before attempting to make recordings. Zara thinks this approach

helped her volunteers get the best out of the interview situation.

“I dedicated time to meeting up with all the interviewees and finding out their life

stories before sending out volunteers to record the interviews,” she says.

“I then developed specially tailored questions for each and briefed the volunteer

interviewers on which aspects of their interviewees’ lives to focus on and how

best to handle sensitive topics.

Zara found that when she helped people to really understand that their stories

matter, they opened up a lot more.

What next?

Zara is currently thinking about other areas that interest her, including human

trafficking, child marriage and FGM. She is considering putting in another NLHF

bid.

She has also been offering free consultation to other community groups who

want to apply for funding, passing on the benefits of her experiences.