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.
