DILIJAN. - Four students from Turkey will arrive to Armenia for a 2-year study program and a cultural experience at a new United World Colleges (UWC) in Dilijan, the co-founder of IDeA (Initiatives for Development of Armenia) foundation Veronika Zonabend told reporters in Dilijan, Armenian News-NEWS.am reports.

According to her, out of four students, who plan to arrive from Turkey, two are Kurds, one is Turk, and one is Turkish Armenian.

The first enrollment of 100 students of the ages between 16 and 18 will start the school in Dilijan in August. Ten of them have been selected in Armenia.

The UWC movement was founded in 1962, with a vision of shared learning of young people of diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. Today, the network includes 13 colleges with two more to open in 2014, one in Dilijan, Armenia, and the other in Freiburg, Germany.

“We have selected the students in a completely need-blind and merit-based way,” Veronika Zonabend added.

Local business community as well as the RVVZ foundation provided scholarships for all qualified Armenian students.

“We believe that a tuition fee must not leave behind any child – or rather a grown-up – in his 16. We are thankful to our partners in Armenia and overseas, who agreed to provide scholarships,” she told.

Veronika Zonabend is the wife of an Armenia-born Russian billionaire Rouben Vardanyan. Together they conceived the project of a world-class school in Dilijan in 2006.

One of the donors is Ameriabank, large Armenian commercial bank, owned by Vardanyan. Other benefactors include corporations and individuals, some of them non-Armenians.

The college will gain international visibility when its first graduates will be admitted in the world top universities, she added.

The city to host the college, the City of Dilijan, has long been home of ethnic minorities, Russians and Kurds, alongside Armenians.

“Besides, it is halfway from Yerevan to Tbilisi, which shows its history of multiculturalism and makes it a good regional destination,” Zonabend added.

The international baccalaureate diploma is probably the most highly regarded pre-university course in the world, added the head of the UWC Dilijan John Puddefoot during the press conference. In addition, the school will bring the world to Armenia, he noted.

“The college will not be secluded from the rest of the city. A mutual exposure of cultures will be a challenge from time to time, but eventually this may lead to friendly ties among young people to last through the rest of their lives,” he stressed.

As 10 Armenian students come to the college, 12 students from Armenia have been selected to study in the UWC colleges outside Armenia. Accordingly, Dilijan will host 90 students of 50 nationalities, including ten Russians, two Georgians, and students from very distant countries, whom young Armenians would not otherwise have met.

The initial stage of the project will require $100 million, but the ultimate goal is to bring the project to self-sustainability. This will only be achieved if the city develops as well, the head of Dilijan Development Fund Arthur Hakobyan said. The Fund will start with a master plan of the city development, which will make the city more predictable to invest in, and a small loan and consulting program for local small businesses.

The fund hopes to revive the city with a number of auxiliary projects, which includes a small production facility for local craftsmen, an art street club, a dance class, and a female city choir.