The launch of the program in regions of Armavir, Vayots Dzor and Syunik:

     

Teachers’ retraining

       Our “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” program was launched in communities of Shenik, Shaki and Vayk in February. A retraining for learners from 3 regions was organized immediately after preparatory activities. We selected the learners taking into consideration the following criteria; their age, experience of working with children from vulnerable groups, motivation, psychological skills and abilities of working with children and used the best practice implemented in 7 communities. Didactic and interactive means were used during the retraining course, a successful practice implemented in various regions was presented, the curriculum worked out beforehand was presented in detail. At the beginning of the course heads of the classes from 3 communities arrived, asked questions concerning them to the leader of the program and received full answers to their questions. The retraining teacher, Astghik, will present in detail the report of the training course.
       I am Astghik.
       During the seminar I presented in detail how to start the project step-by-step. In order to start the project in their regions the trainers first of all should make a list of participants. For this purpose, they should search for 10-15 year-old children yielding the basic education among their acquaintances and relatives, as well as in schools. After completing the list they should speak with the parents of the children, inform them about the project and receive their approval, so that their child can freely participate in classes of the basic education. After making the list they arrange with the administration of the school about receiving a class for starting the courses. To come to an agreement with the children on days and to organize the classes in accordance with the plan. If there will be children having psychological problems they must surely receive a support of psychologist.
       During the retraining course I shared with my experience and acquired skills with the participants, presented the best works from other communities.
       For example, to ask the children after lessons what they liked and what didn't, what offers they have. To be friendly with the children, not to put a teacher-pupil border, because our task is to teach the children through games and contests. The goal of the retraining was to produce such trainers, who would create an environment, where children would be easy, interact with each other and would help the children to perceive the material worked out beforehand in accordance with the curriculum.

Progress Report:

Project leader Nare Gareginyan

The aim of the project is to assist community youth involvement in the development process of their communities, to develop IT and Media spheres and to increase the volunteering activity level in their communities. After the successful fulfillment of our set goals we have the following results:

1. More than 300 active beneficiaries from ten regions of Armenia and Yerevan (14-30 year: 143 boys and 174 girls) who took part in the 'ICT as a Tool for Young Voices' gained research skills and improved their knowledge level on IT.
2. The Youth from the mentioned regions are now engaged in more organizational activities. Nearly 15 young boys and girls from each region organize ongoing meetings, discussions about community tasks.
3. Our beneficiaries actively take part in community meetings; organize online discussions with the Youth from the other communities.


I am Nare, head of “Young journalists’ online center” of Zartonk-89 NGO, as well as leader of 'ICT as a Tool for Young Voices' project. In order to plan our further steps I organized meetings with the responsible of the regional groups. After summing up the results of regional meetings and taking into account the suggestions of the Youth we are going to

1. Strengthen the internal and external capabilities of the community groups.
2. Assist in community based experience exchange and partnership opportunities among the Youth.
3. Obtaining technical means and their application.

Our Progress In Seven Armenian Communities:

Progress report

In October 2 members of the monitoring group of our organization visited to 7 communities (Byurakan, Arapi, Vanadzor, Khor Virab, Martuni, Hrazadan and Gandzaqar), where “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” project is being implemented. During the meetings they talked to the beneficiaries, their parents and tutors about project importance and implementation in their communities. The children who haven't gotten enough education because of different reasons (social bad conditions, parentless and etc.) from their compeers, in the result of trainings they obtained basic knowledge and continued their education at school. Especially they mentioned on the following subjects: Math, Armenian language, Geography and History.

The impression is that in Vanadzor city the children get basic knowledge with the help of netbooks. They learn how to use netbook for getting basic knowledge.

In Arpi community of Shirak region where 15 beneficiaries are participated in our project, 2 of them who are socially needy children are involved in trainings. The other participants of the project are assisting them .The tutors are conducting with them individually as well.

The trainings were well organized in Khor Virap as well. There were children who even didn't know the letters in that community. Thanks to hard work of the tutors they learnt to read and write. They started to learn the other subjects as well.

In all communities we have progress, in each community the number of beneficiaries is 15-16. During the training our beneficiaries acquired basic knowledge, became more confident and encouraged. In the result we have planned to implement this project in 3 communities: Shenik, Shaqe and Eghegnadzor as well. We talked to Arus who is the project coordinator in Hrazdan.

           Hello. I am Arus from Hrazdan. I am responsible for youth journalist center in Kotayk region and also the coordinator of “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” project in our community. The project was beneficial for me, the tutors and the participants. Due to this project we overcame all the problems appeared for them that even the tutors couldn't do. During this project we could give the children basic education due to which they became more self-confident and encouraged. We managed to reveal their strong and weak sides and give them new skills. In that short period we became their tutors and friends. The 15 beneficiaries liked us and our project. Every time after the training they asked for additional individual trainings. The parents of the beneficiaries are satisfied for the project as well. The participants of the project are socially needy children. The first day they were constrained and ashamed to communicate and we managed to involve them in the discussion during the project. Even the tutors and the director thanked us for the project. I and my team are very excited from the project and grateful to give us such an opportunity. We hope the project will be continued, we will have an opportunity to work with children which will be useful for them.

The success of Gandzakar:

Syuzi is our volunteer in Gandzakar community 

The aim of “ICT as a Tool for Young Voices” project was to promote youth involvement in community development process as well as to develop identification of problems, promote youth to find solutions to those problems, promote IT and media sector development, volunteer working activities in the communities.

The project assists in young people involvement, raising issues of the communities, their participation in problems solutions, knowledge development on media and ICT. 

Meetings seminars and trainings were organized in 10 communities of Armenia.

As a result, our beneficiaries carry out evaluation and assessment of community issues, do public discussions and share their knowledge and experience with other members of the community as well as actively communicate with other young groups of Yerevan and communities. It helped the development of IT and media spheres and its activation of volunteers’ works in communities.

Community urgent issues were revealed with joint efforts, afterwards were offered its solutions and necessary ways to overcome them.    

Young people of the communities were highly motivated in each issue with great enthusiasm and readiness and we can definitely say that the regional groups of YJOC could reveal community issues and suggest its appropriate solutions.

In Gandzakar community of Tavush region our project had success.  That project gave an opportunity for young people. Syuzi who is a resident in that community will share her success with us.

Hi, I am Syuzi, I live in Gandzakar village of Tavush region in Armenia. The village has about 3,500 residents; most of them are young people.

In 2007 “Community Action Committee” is created by sponsorship of USAID, that was united the young people of the village. Young people began to realize what is “volunteerism” concept, how to work for community. The project was continued until 2012.  

After a year we are informed about a competition, organized by Zartonk-89 NGO and YJOC. 6 young people participated in that competition shooting a video about the problems of the village. That video was awarded a prize. Our work and cooperation began with Zartonk-89 NGO and YJOC. YJOC was established in our community, Tavush region. We began to have active participation in reveal of community issues. In community we conduct seminars and trainings.

Thanks to Zartonk-89 NGO and YJOC children, teenagers and young people are able to communicate with young people from other communities, to share their experiences with our colleagues by means of communication technologies, to visit our colleagues in different communities, informed about their activities, to invest their experience in our community. We feel us a real member in our community.

I thank to the people who support for our community to keep active, by means of IT we could raise our voice on community needs and problems. 

Our progress in Gegharkunik region:

“Providing education for 150 children in Armenia” project is being held in 10 regions of Armenia. We have achieved a lot of progress while carrying out this project, but we also faced some difficulties that we managed to solve. Such issues we had in town Martuni, Gegharkunik region. We had lack of teachers at the beginning of the project. So again we announced a contest to fill the teachers' vacancy. The teachers had to measure up to certain criterions - possess appropriate knowledge, organizational skills, and experience of working with children. According to these criterions we chose the teachers in Martuni. To raise the effectiveness of the studies, on the second day the best teachers from the regions went to Martuni and taught the children there. These teachers also shared their experience with them. After this our project achieved great progress in Gegharkunik region too, thanks to the project's coordinator in Martuni, our volunteer Vanuhi. The support of the teachers from different regions, and experience exchange helped our progress in this project. Here is what Vanuhi says about the project.

"I'm Vanuhi from town Martuni, Gegharkunik region. I am extremely happy to have the opportunity to realize such an important project in our town. I'm fond of working with the children in need, and helping them get basic education. At first it was quite hard and challenging for us to realize this project, for we were only informed about its idea and had very little experience of working with children. On the second day of the studies, under the supervision of Mrs. Silva, the members of the centre and the teachers from the regions visited us to give a lesson. Having now a model of how to work, we were afterwards able to do more than we had expected. At first we noticed passivity among the children, since they were not acquainted to each other, but soon they made friends and started to communicate also at school. Due to the studies the children started to speak more freely, they got the ability of expressing their thoughts and ideas without shyness.


They had progress in studies, they developed logical thinking, gained knowledge concerning different fields, and we hope that in the future they will be able to use their grounding and skills in different spheres of life. After the studies ended we didn't break our relationship with the children. Moreover, we are planning to have an outing to the country with them next few days. Now the children are having their summer holidays, but we go on having individual studies with each of them".


We thank Global Giving and all our supporters who help us carry out the project "Providing education for 150 children in Armenia" in our community.

Our Progress In Ararat Region:

Progress report

The aim of “ICT as a Tool for Young Voices” program is to promote the involvement of young people in the development of their communities in Armenia, as well as to assist them in developing their skills to reveal the issues and needs of their communities, and finding solutions to the issues. The project is also a great way for the participants to improve their knowledge in ICT and social media for the benefit of their communities.  

The project resulted in the following:

1. The total number of project participants is 317 (174 girls and 143 boys), who all come from 10 regions of Armenia and Yerevan. The age of participants is between 14 and 30 years old.

In frames of the program they have a chance to improve their skills and knowledge in IT and journalism. They share their investigations, interviews, suggestions, find out and reveal the community, write about it in their blogs and publish in social networks.

2. To increase the youth employment rate in communities 15 young people in each of the selected 10 communities regularly hold discussions, collect materials about upcoming events and important issues in their communities. They also organize online discussions with young people from other communities based in other regions. All these initiatives contribute to revealing the public needs and looking for the ways to solve. 
3. Raised the level of youth self-confidence and self-consciousness, especially in regards with their communities.
4. Our beneficiaries have improved their knowledge in IT and journalism. To increase the effectiveness of the work we have also distributed netbooks to the groups in the communities. One of the most important project achievements is the cooperation between the beneficiaries in Yerevan and the distant communities. Back in May we have organized a meeting in Noyan Tapan media center, which hosted 30 beneficiaries from 10 regions. During the meeting they presented their progress on the projects, shared their experience with each others and suggested new ideas for further cooperation.  

One of the participants, Astghik Arakelyan, who is the team leader of working group in Ararat region presented the project of the team.

“Hello, I am Astghik from Ararat region. I am one of the participants of “ICT as a Tool for Young Voices” project. In the frame of the project our team has organized number of trainings, seminars, meetings and discussions to find out the ways of making our community a better place. Samvel Martirosyan, a very well-known journalist and blogger in Armenia held a series of workshops for us and shared lots of tips and practical advices on IT usage and journalism. In the result I have started my own blog and the blog of our regional team. 

Thanks to the project I got to know many young people from other regions, and we started helping each other, sharing ideas and became friends. This is one of the ways to make our projects more effective.
I was also very happy to have a chance to share my knowledge and skills on IT, effective usage of computers with other young people, who unfortunately didn’t have the opportunity to join the training sessions.

It is absolutely necessary to continue the implementation of this project as it helps us to develop and improve our work for the benefit of our communities!

I’d like to thank everyone who has ever supported our project and believed in us, and the GlobalGiving for the chance to show our work and spread a word about our success.” 

Thank You "GlobalGiving" And Our Supporters "Zartonk-89 NGO Armenia" 2015

Whatch the video of this link `

Thank You "GlobalGiving" And Our Supporters "Zartonk-89 NGO Armenia" 2015

Our progress in Gandzaqar Community, Tavush Region

Here Marcella is making a forget-me-not, the official logo for the Armenian genocide centennial 

            As we have mentioned in our previous report, we implement the project “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” in the six regions of the Republic of Armenia (Aragatsotn, Shirak, Lori, Ararat, Gegharquniq and Vayots Dzor) and have quite evident progress. Gandzaqar Community from Tavush Region also joined us. The responsible for the project is Syuzi. Syuzi initiated the choice of project beneficiaries, basing on the criteria which we stated for the project, i. e., bad social conditions, age and reasons for being deprived from receiving education. We went to Gandzaqar, which is one of the farthest Armenian regions. The project participants and trainers met us. The children were very happy and inspired, they freely and truly answered to our questions concerning the project. By the way we went to Gandzaqar on April 24, on the very day when Armenians commemorated the Armenian Genocide Centennial    (http://armeniangenocide100.org/en/). Our project beneficiaries made forget-me-nots; the flower symbolizes the official logo for the genocide centennial.

            One of the beneficiaries, Marcella came to us and gave a letter, where she shared her thoughts about the “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” project We present it to you as well.

            “Hello everyone, I am Marcella, from Gandzaqar Community, Tavush Region. I participate in the mentioned project that is being implemented in our Region. Let me truly share my thoughts. First of all I'd like to tell you that before my engagement to this project I used to be very shy, low-spirited, did not like to get in touch with others as I had lack of knowledge compared with others of the same age. Bad social conditions were the main reason that I did not attend to my lessons, because I helped my parents to earn our daily bread. Recently one of my friends told me about this project. At first I was shy because of my knowledge lack. Any how I encouraged myself and decided to attend to one training of this project. After the first training I decided to take part in every lesson and training that is being organized in the frame of this project. Here I always enjoy pleasant treatment from everyone. At first I was not very active, after some time I began studying the lessons and to actively participate in every lesson. The environment is always warm and healthy. I always freely discuss and ask questions about the themes that I do not know with trainers and my friends. I also like to play games with children. After the end of the lesson I do not want to go home, because I always enjoy the welcoming, knowledge based atmosphere.

            Due to this important project I improved my knowledge level, gained many friends and would be happy if this project becomes ongoing. I am thankful to the project donors, to the Global Giving Team, the organizers and everyone who assisted in implementation of this important project in one of the farthest Armenian communities, in Gandzaqar”.

Progress report

In the frame of “Community’s young voice” project the members of our working group have organized training on the theme of “New Technologies for the youth” in Vanadzor city of Lory region. 14-17 years old youths who are interested in ICT and Media journalism are participated in this project. The training is held in Information Center of Vanadzor city. At the beginning of the training the program with its aim and process was presented. By means of game the participants got acquainted with each other and shared information about their preferences and planned future career. The trainer presented the background of information, computer and its usage.  They had also a discussion about those problems related to IT they had during the education process and tried to find its solution. The beneficiaries had idea on advantages and disadvantages of social networks. During the next trainings the participants had idea about Google including its all elements and services, how to use gmail as a communication system and what is “blog”, how to open and use it. They also had discussion about formatting the computer, search and send elements of the computer. As a result the participants made a presentation on IT by means of their gained knowledge and presented them to monitoring group of the project.  At the end of the trainings individual tasks are assigned for the beneficiaries that require much work to do.The trainings are ongoing taking into account the beneficiaries suggestions on topics selection and they are so interesting and effective that the children gave respond to write this letter. I am Mary from Vanadzor community. On February 16, in the frame of "Community young voice” project I was participated in "New technologies for youth" training organized by "Young Journalist Online Center" in Lory region. During this period I had some important skills on computer. In pleasant and free atmosphere we got important and useful knowledge on IT.  I was very glad to have participation in this training. I want you to organize such programs frequently and I am pleased to visit again and participate in such similar programs and increase my knowledge on media. In the frame of this program I gained different computer programs, learned competently usage of internet resources, and how to keep computer safe from various dangers and viruses.

Our progress in Kotayk region:

On January 31, 2015 at a meeting took place in "Noyan Tapan" media center for summarizing the first stage and launching the second stage of the project “Providing education for 150 children in Armenia", implemented by Zartonk-89 NGO and "Young Journalists Online Center". Totally, there were 30 representatives from Yerevan and the 10 regions of Armenia at the meeting. We welcomed the regional working groups and represented the advancements of Zartonk-89 in becoming a superstar in Global Giving, in which Global Giving staff and regional working groups had significant role. The responsible of the project presented the overall process of the project: its implementation results and also shared their experience with others, discussing the future plans. For the effective implementation of the project the first prize was given to the working group of the community of Khor Virap, Ararat region, the second prize was given to the working group of the community of Vanadzor, Lori Region, and the third prize was given to the working group of the community of Arapi, Shirak region. At the first stage of the program from YJOC working groups only six regions were included in the project and then four more were added, Armavir, Tavush, Kotayk and Syunik regions also joined that program and got financial and technical support, as well as advice from Zartonk -89: thus, they can start the implementation of the project in four regions. During the implantation of the program the participants obtained experience, skills and knowledge .
As we have mentioned above, during the meeting the representatives of six regions shared their experience with others, gave them advice. The six participating communities received financial and technical resources to continue the program. The meeting passed in a warm atmosphere and the representatives of regions went with enthusiasm to carry out this important project. Here is how the project is being implemented in Hrazdan Community, Kotayk Region.


I am Arus Nersisyan, the coordinator of 'Young Journalists online Center' in Kotayk Region. At present we are implementing 'Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia' in our region, at primary school, number two. First of all let me mention that the implementation of this project requires devotion, love and hard work. Of course if you love what you do it becomes easier to do hard and valuable work as well. When I was presented the project, I was very excited, although I had experience in working with children. I was afraid of not being able to meet that challenge, as this work is both obligatory and responsible; we deal with teenagers who are very fragile. Teenagers generally are very close and complex, plus psychological, social family problems, therefore working with them becomes more difficult. Together with my team we could create and develop firm, warm and friendly relations. We are 15 in our team. The children were chosen with teachers help and advice. Each of them has their own, unique story, their problems, difficulties which are revealed in their hardly smiling eyes. When organizing our training's we took into account everything for changing their unhappy routine, organizing different games, competitions every day and chose the winners for each day. At first children were shy and uneasy, they avoided giving answers, speaking but during the lessons we succeeded in having free discussions and broad talks. I was very proud when one of our teachers evaluated our work, noticing that one of the most shy and complex child was then very confident and freely expressed his opinion and ideas. Our teacher noted and valued contribution in that. Every training revealed something new among the children. Per instance, Erik drew very well, but never showed his drawings, because of being shy. He drew a nice picture for us, won a prize; he was the winner of the day. The next day we went for an excursion to a museum. Many of the children were there for the first time. Erik examined all the exponents, pictures and was very active in asking many questions. Then he told us that dreams of painting and wished for a reality that one day his pictures also would be worthy in finding their place at the museums. Next day one of our participants, Vahe gave me a piece of paper. He asked me not to show it to anyone, just to read what was written there and express my personal opinion. It turned out that Vahe wrote poems. So we decided to organize a poetry competition the next day. Besides the prize, the winner had a possibility of printing his poems in one of local journals. I can talk a lot about our training's and we do enjoy whatever we do. I want to sum up my thoughts with one of our participant Vahe's words, who used to be shy and talk very little, 'lessons at school give us the most important thing, i. e. knowledge and friends'. These values are ours, our achievements and no one can steal them from us.