BRIDGE4CSOS GOODWILL AMBASSADOR: GREG GUERGUERIAN

BridgeforCSOs
#Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassadors
3 min readJun 20, 2019

Miassine Foundation is one of the sub-grantees of the EU funded Bridge4CSOs project that enhances financial sustainability of Armenian civil society organizations, through social entrepreneurship. Established in 2009, Miassine Foundation’s main mission has been building social-economic and cultural bridges between different parties involved, to ensure a flourishing future for Armenia and Armenian people. One of Miassine Foundation’s initiatives is “Bon Appetit Bread factory” in Gyumri. The social bakery, opened in late 2017, helps vulnerable young people in Gyumri, by training and providing them employment opportunities.

This time, Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassador Greg Guerguerian, arrived to Gyumri, Armenia to share his skills and expertise with the young bakers.

Greg Guerguerian, French of Armenian descent, has worked as a consultant and an auditor in the field of Information Technology for many years. In 2012, Greg left his career behind and moved to Bali, Indonesia taking with him a piece of France, his creativity and his faith to make his dreams come true. He opened his own Artisan French Bakery-Cafe along with his cousin Rafi Papazian. His family-run bakery-cafe known today as “Monsieur Spoon” has now 5 different locations in Bali. “Monsieur Spoon” soon occupied the top list of people’s favorite destinations in Bali.

Greg is currently the general director and the Sales and Marketing Manager at “Monsieur Spoon”.

His mother, coming from the famous French wine region, Burgundy had introduced him to local culinary artisans there. He believes that the ideal pastry shouldn’t only taste good, it must also have the ideal shape, color and texture. “It’s perfect to feel the stark contrast between the crispy crust and the soft filling of any given cake” he states, “unlike bread, each slight gram of the used ingredients in pastry plays an important and major role in the overall result”.

Goodwill Ambassador experience

Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassadors help to promote the work of Armenian civil society and scale up the impact. As a Goodwill Ambassador, Greg headed to “Bon Appetit Bread Factory” in Gyumri, to happily and passionately share his baking techniques with the staff. During the master class, he taught them the basics of preparing French pastries like fruit tart, and gave them a few tips on how to develop their social enterprise further.

With Greg’s help, volunteers and staff members had the opportunity to further expand their product assortment to the delight of all the Armenian lovers of French pastry. According to Greg, what he has done so far for “Bon Appetit bakery” is to be only considered the first step, the base. He expects the staff members and the young students in the bakery to work hard, experiment and try different baking and business approaches in the near future. By doing so, they will definitely find the optimal direction and strategy, which will best fit the bakery and its customers, in terms of perfection in baking the recipes, how their pastry looks and tastes, and in terms of their organizational work. With this Goodwill Ambassador experience, Greg proved the saying that “Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom, sharing it is the first step to Humanity”.

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Originally published at https://www.agbu.am.

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#Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassadors
#Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassadors

Published in #Bridge4CSOs Goodwill Ambassadors

Besides funding CSOs to start or expand social enterprises, AGBU ArmenBridge4CSOs project, connects diaspora professionals with local Armenian projects. Many Armenian, influential specialists and experts from around the world became Goodwill Ambassadors for different enterprises.

BridgeforCSOs
BridgeforCSOs

Written by BridgeforCSOs

The project that connects professionals from the Diaspora to invest their knowledge and skills in support of nonprofits serving the Armenian society.