AGBU AVC student Lusan Bicakci Saskal was born in Adiyaman, Turkey. Her family then moved to Bolis (Istanbul) where they have been living for over fifty years. Although there was a large Armenian community there, Lusan did not have a chance to attend an Armenian school. She received her entire education at Turkish schools and universities and then worked at a Turkish airline company for twenty-four years before retiring.
“At home, my parents spoke Armenian in the Adıyaman dialect. We would listen to this dialect, but we would respond in Turkish. We didn't have the habit of speaking Armenian,” she recalls. “Outside the home, we were completely surrounded by the Turkish language.”
Despite that, Lusan’s desire to learn Armenian never faded.
In the 1990s, she attended a few Armenian language courses, organized by the Turkish-Armenian Teachers’ Association and the Hrant Dink Foundation. “It was a great privilege for me that my first Armenian teacher was the poet Zahrad,” she says.
Since childhood, Lusan has always been engaged in writing and literature. Some of the poems from her two books, “Your Words Remained with Me” (2001) and “Silent and Heavy” (2012), have been translated into Armenian and English. She is also a member of the Writers’ Union of Armenia. Various articles and translations from Armenian to Turkish done by her have been published in the Turkish media, as well as in newspapers like “Marmara” and “Agos”.
Though Lusan did not have the chance to receive an Armenian education in her youth, she is very proud that her two children did. “They attended our neighborhood's Armenian school for nine years. It's a great joy for me that they received an Armenian education.”
In 2021, Lusan discovered the courses offered by the AGBU Armenian Virtual College (AVC) through a recommendation from a friend. Intrigued, she wasted no time and enrolled in the Intermediate level of Western Armenian.
“The AVC program and method were very effective for me,” she notes. “Every week, I would receive new material and vocabulary words about a certain lesson or topic, do the exercises, participate in AVC's social events, and most importantly, I always had the opportunity to practice with my online instructor Zepur Kheblikian and ask questions. Those frequent meetings became the reason that my online instructor has now become my close friend.”
Subsequently, Lusan took all the AGBU AVC Western Armenian courses and completed the Advanced level. “I made significant progress in Armenian,” she says. “Thanks to the Armenian language course and flexible approach of the AVC, I acquired the ability to speak Armenian more fluently and accurately.”
AGBU AVC Western Armenian Affairs Coordinator Zepur Kheblikian describes Lusan as a meticulous and responsible student. “Being an accountable learner, she has always been prepared for the lessons, participated in online events and made an effort to try and practice newly-learned words and expressions by using them in oral and written conversations. She has taken the Armenian Language course to improve her language skills, but also to dive deeper into the Armenian culture,” she says.
Feeling more confident in her Armenian language skills, Lusan is now continuing her studies at AVC by taking the Armenian History course instructed in Western Armenian.
“I am grateful to all those who provided this opportunity to learn Armenian. First and foremost, I want to thank Founding President Dr. Yervant Zorian and all the AGBU AVC supporters. AGBU AVC is a great resource for learning Armenian and getting to know Armenian history and culture. I recommend this one-of-a-kind opportunity to all my acquaintances,” she says.
Recently, during her trip to Armenia, Lusan visited the AGBU AVC office in Yerevan with her husband Ohannes, where they were warmly welcomed by Western Armenian Affairs Coordinator Zepur Kheblikian and Western Armenian Online Instructor for asynchronous program Zepur Babikian, as well as the rest of the AGBU AVC team, to talk about their experience with AVC and the impact it had on their lives.
