Mission and Impact

Mission

The Hidden Road Initiative (HRI) is a student operated, charitable non-profit organization, that provides educational and leadership opportunities to underprivileged students living in remote villages in Armenia.

HRI aims to enhance the social capabilities of the village children and empower a new generation of students providing college scholarships, running youth-led educational summer camps with volunteers from across the world, and ultimately training the youth of the village to run service programs themselves. HRI also works to promote the economy and social equality of the villages by conducting various development projects, such as renovating schools, installing computer rooms and constructing kindergartens.

The Hidden Road Initiative was officially founded in 2011 by a group of Armenian students at University of California Santa Barbara. The organization currently has chapters at the University of California San Diego, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, and AGBU MDS. Read about our organization's history here.

Impact

College Completion Rate
To date, 100% of our scholarship recipients have finished their college degrees or are on path to graduate university.

Computer and e-Literacy
Since 2011, one of the major focuses of HRI has been to promote computer education and e-literacy. Since then, many of our camp graduates have majored in Computer Science, or been able to find job opportunities in the tech world.

New Job Opportunities
Renovating and opening two new kindergartens created new job opportunities for young professionals in the villages of Jrashen and Tsaghkaber.

Civic Engagement
All of our projects have been facilitated through the collaboration of the local community. This partnership has empowered many young students to take ownership over the projects through leading the construction projects and facilitating the summer camps.

Young Women in Leadership
Both in the USA as well as Armenia, 95% of the leaders in HRI have consisted of women in their early twenties. This has been an encouraging and empowering number that has given many young women in both countries an opportunity to learn from one another and change traditional misconceptions about women.