Zartonok-89 NGO

Your Huge Contribution to Our Success:

During the training
Dear donors and partners, we would like to inform you that the “ICT as a tool for young voices” program has been selected as GlobalGiving’s Project of the Month for September 2016 as innovative, high-impact effect. In this report, we want to share with our news, success and achievements we had during implementation of the program.
The project aims to promote the involvement of the youth of the Republic of Armenia in the development of their communities, to develop their skills to identify community problems and find solutions choosing the modern technology as a tool and a platform.
Being in socially vulnerable condition, the youth of the distant regions of RA, having noticeable lack of knowledge and skills in journalism, mass media, IT, most of them cannot claim and inform the society and share their problems. Some of them get disappointed and leave their communities. As a result, the youth becomes more passive and the community problems become hidden.
   Dear donors, your donations were directed towards the implementation of training a new generation of young journalists.
Our participants with the ICT logo
The participants present their work
In various communities of the Republic of Armenia we carried out training in non-formal methodology which was entitled “Young Experts.” The training aimed to boost their skills in journalism, analytics and creativity. Develop analytical mind, promote the development of free speech and thinking ability and which is most important to master the main principles of journalism and the progress of the modern technologies.
Active and highly motivated young people form 14-20 years old were selected as a target who want to be involved in the development of their communities. During the meetings our beneficiaries had opportunity to ask their questions to our leading specialists and of course suggest real solutions during discussions and debates. As a result, “Young Experts” virtual platform was created, where the youth can freely communicate, ask the questions concerning them online and receive professional replies. During the meetings our participants were given shirts with ICT logo which reflected the idea of being one team better.
By analyzing and examining the further actions of the youth in distant regions and the condition of the distant regions we came to conclusion that positive changes are expected during the coming stages of the project, a clear plan has been developed, which will be the guidance when completing effective and correct community research. 
Mary shares her creative story
 We appreciate that you support us and your donations got addressed to the implementation of this very important plan.
The following is Mary’s creative story and message addressed to all our donors.
Hello, I’m Mary. I live in Vanadzor community. During my free time I like painting. I painted Lui, a 16 years old boy who also lives in my community. Lui wants to solve the problems of our community. He is a strong boy and he never gets disappointed. During this training Lui and me have learnt how to identify the community problems. We are sure that in the nearest future we’ll live in a better and democratic society. Dear donors, in our country we are strong together and your donations help and will help us to live in a place where the freedom of speech, democracy and patience reign.

The Giving Tuesday and our progress:

The children are preparing for the Giving Tuesday.
   Zartonk-89 NGO continues to implement “Providing education for 150 children in Armenia” project in different communities and villages of the distant regions of Armenia. The organization has adopted an important tradition which is to involve our beneficiaries in various holidays and events. Participating in such meetings children seem to become more active, determined and which is the most important they become motivated.
Due to your donation this time our staff visited Pokr Vedi with the regional representatives of the project, volunteers, and trainers.
The children, participating in the meeting, were looking forward to our arrival with great excitement, enthusiasm and expectation which proves the small posters made by our
The children are preparing for the Giving Tuesday
beneficiaries as a sign of gratitude to donors, the staff of GlobalGiving, to all good and kind people and organizations in their words.
The meeting with children took place in the school yard where they enjoyed the beauty and the colors of the nature and they could again freely express their ideas, suggestions and remarks, which will promote the continuation and advance of the project. We value the skills of creativity and the talent. Providing them with drawing and writing utensils, they developed their drawing skills which we think is the best way to express an idea. Similar meetings establish positive sides and characters in their psychology. And that is the guarantee of a healthy and strong society.
In the second part of the meeting we presented them the Giving Tuesday international day.
By listening and learning about it children started to share with their stories and their preferences and some of them, for example Knarik and Andranik, directed their speech to donors.
The children are preparing for the Giving Tuesday
Please find presented little Knarik’s and Andranik’s speech: “Hello, we are Knarik and Andranik. We are good friends. We live in Pokr Vedi village. We love the life with both its dark and light sides. Today we’re preparing for Giving Tuesday and we believe that there are many kind people who will help us and become our heroes of the day. We have a power which is our knowledge, we have hope for the happy future.
Please do you donation and support us.

Learning from failures is the way to go further:


As Exupéry said, children are flowers born with their knobs down.  Exactly form that moment they need protection and care.  Only due to that they will have healthy and happy childhood.  In addition to this, our children need proper and measured upbringing.
Learning from failures.
Our organization was trying to overcome poverty and illiteracy in 10 regions of Armenia offering 150 working children to take part in special trainings and obtain basic education under working circumstances.
     Basic education was designed for the child that’s why very simple material was chosen.  However, there were also complicated themes, which were not mastered by children immediately.  That's why the in addition to the material of basic education, interactive games were conducted, through which easy and interesting representation of the basic educational material became possible. 
We admit that our first failure was connected with non-proportion and large-volume of the educational material.
There are some general requirements distinguished by our organization while conducting the games for the basic education.  They contribute to the development of thinking, enlarge their outlook.  There are some points in games that should be considered, however our organization had some failures in those points.  Those points are the followings:
During the lesson.
-the game should be conducted, leaded, interfered in case of necessity, but they should not be oppressed
-each participant should have the opportunity to express initiative
-the principles of freedom and voluntary should be primary in the games; there should not be any imposing
-the content, rules and conditions of the game should be clear and comprehensible for children.
During the group work with children we distinguished some points that are some of our failures and will definitely lead us during the future process of the project:
-to choose a comfortable room for the group work implementation.  It is not desirable to have many things there, which can distract the children's attention.
In case of possibility, to choose comfortable chairs.  The children are not desired to sit around tables, they are better to sit in round
-it is desired to prepare all the material before the meeting
-to pick up «Do not disrupt» signboard before the meeting, to warn children on secrecy, which means not to tell the speech of group participants to other people out of the group
-to encourage children to speak about their feelings and to present their experience
-to help children to take responsibility for their behave
The child feels satisfaction when she/he studies and works with pleasure.  When there is a comfortable environment in the group, the participants work with confident and seek to learn and create.  Games are one of the most effective methods to create such environment.
Individual work with children.
Our trainers conducting group activities have to have appropriate preparedness, and it is important to remember while working with children that they are more sensible and vulnerable, than adults.  Group work is a very powerful influence method, which can be effective, but also can make emotional pain and strong feelings.  That's why trainer managing the children group, should have group work experience and continuously increase his/her professional abilities.
Non-engagement of games and exercises having great refreshing influence in the project is also a failure as children got tired of learning process fast and needed refreshing.  We are planning also to add refreshing and animating games in the curriculum, which will contribute to focusing attention of the children.
     The limit of the number of children
Many children wanted to participate, however the number of project participants was limited and the money would not be enough to engage more children.  We do not consider this fact as a failure as our organization is going to invest its whole capacity to contribute to the continuousness of the project and engagement of new children.
In many regions area was an issue, and regional group managers have tried to solve that issue by conducting lessons in the open air.
Our failure in this is connected with non-engagement of psychologists in some stages of the project.
One more issue is to be distinguished.  The teachers are only 5-7 years older than the participants and they also need education and self-perfection.  They lack experience and retraining and try to fill that gap with the help of consult with the other members of the organization.  However, only advice would not help as they should also be good pedagogues to understand the participants well.  For example, there was a boy amongst the project participants in one of our regions, who was very aggressive and maybe had psychological problems.  Psychological skills were necessary to work with him, and the trainer could master them only in case of passing retraining.  In order to solve this problem special course with the engagement of psychologists were conducted.
In other region we had a failure again as the trainers were boys and had chosen only boys as project participants.  This brought to gender inequality and did not ensure engagement of two sexes.  This problem was solved during the second stage by engaging representatives of both sexes.
One of the most important moments of the relationship between trainer and child is the ease communication and sharing between them.  Setting such relationships and reaching open conversations require time, persistence and understanding.  Trainers should provide time to have time with each child individually, especially, when there is a necessity to speak about the problems exciting children.
Definitely we may admit responsibility as the obstacles aroused later could be considered.  However, nothing is ideal and, of course, seeking for perfection should not stop.
Teamwork.

One may continuously learn from false and failures and our organization doesn't miss any opportunity to learn and become perfect.  Our failures taught us to be more reasonable and attentive while implementing the projects and to contribute to the retraining of the trainers in a great part.
    Now, while implanting the other stages of the project, we are using all that we have learned from our failures.  We are conducting special trainings with the trainers, prepare them psychologically in order that they implement easily and effectively the courses with children.  We are adding many new games and exercises as the project gives non-formal education.  The trainers also pass special courses - “Facilitation skills” in order to be able to work skillfully with children. 
At the end, we want to remember the popular idea of Coco Chanel:
“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” 

Your contribution to our acquirement:

"ICT as a tool for young voices"
The whole staff of "Zartonk-89" NGO wants to inform with pleasure that "ICT as a tool for young voices" project was selected as GlobalGiving's Project of the Month for September 2016.  This selection is very important for us, for which we are thankful to the whole staff of GlobalGiving and, of course, to all our donors.  This donation will be directed to the progress and development of information and communication technology in the Republic of Armenia, as well as to the revelation and solution of community issues.  The potential, engagement and readiness of active and motivated young people from 11 communities of RA will be the basis for all these processes.
"Zartonk-89" NGO have repeatedly implemented social queries, which have help us to understand well the state of communities, the problems there and to find solutions to them.  Meanwhile, our beneficiaries are given the opportunity to say their words to the donors and to thank them both orally and through beautiful posters made by them.  We are planning to contribute to the project in two main directions; through providing with theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as skills to our beneficiaries.  Our young community experts, acquiring knowledge, will conduct meetings on modern digital technology progress and acquirement knowledge in this sphere in their communities sharing with their experience.  Besides, there will be practical trainings, during which our beneficiaries will have the opportunity to make use of digital technology and to practice it.
"Zartonk-89" NGO will conduct regular meetings, seminars both in the organization and remote provinces in order to provide with necessary information and contribution.  We value the young people's opinions and offers and aspiration to be educated, aware and to solve the challenges in their communities.
Vigen Mkrtchyan, the leader of "ICT as a Tool for Young Voices" project, wants to say his word and thank our donors and of course the whole staff of GlobalGiving.

Hello, I am Vigen.  The whole staff of our organization and I want to express our great appreciation and gratitude to you for this great input, which will be directed to the implementation of earth-changing ideas in the world, and particularly in Armenia.  We say with confidence that we will direct this donation to the improvement of ICT capacities and skills of the young people from the regions of RA.  Once again, thank all our donors for always being here for us.  We value your great gesture, which will be the basis in the future for the development and enlargement of this sphere.

The Bonus Day and our progress:

The children are preparing for the Bonus day 1
"Zartonk-89" NGO continues to realize the project "Providing education for 150 children in Armenia" in various communities and villages of the distant regions of RA.  The organization arranged again a visit to Khor Virap community of Ararat region aiming to hear so important opinions and offers of our beneficiaries - children.  The beneficiaries of the project, the volunteers of the organization, the person responsible for the project of Khor Virap community - Astghik and others were present at the meeting.  The meeting with the children was held at the garden, where the children shared with their offers in the fresh air and surrounded with beautiful scenes of the nature.  Each of them had the opportunity to freely express their own opinion related the future course of the project.  Then the person responsible for the project of the community - Astghik, together with the volunteers of the organization, conducted a small painting contest aiming to let the children depict phenomena and symbols characterizing their future profession through the amazing language of painting.  The children were painting with a great enthusiasm and using colored pencils and papers to illuminate their paintings.  That moment was very important for us because it seemed that the great desire of becoming a good specialist (doctor, musician, engineer, designer etc.) and contributing to our society was growing up in them. 
The children are preparing for the Bonus day 2
In the result the children had the opportunity to present their paintings, why they had selected that profession, to ask the questions exciting them.  The representatives of our organization promised the children to conduct such meetings often and provide with popular materials on their professions.  We think that such meetings are very important for children and are aimed at making the children feel the necessity of becoming competent specialist.  At the meeting we presented the children the important Bonus day.  They got informed that it will be held on September 21th and will last from 6:00:01 AM to 23:59:59 PM EDT.  The response of the children was enthusiastic.  They called on our donors to make donations contributing to the project.  Here is Abraham's call to donors.
The call of Abraham
       Hello,

I am Abraham, I live in Khor Virap community in Ararat region.  I want to call on all our donors of our project to make donation on Bonus Day and help my friends and me.  I want to become an engineer and depicted my profession today.  I am very happy that there are people in the world who are ready to help us.

The project summary and our progress:

Ani presented our platform.
Summarizing the "Power of democracy" training-course within "ICT as a Tool for Young Voices" project, "Zartonk-89" NGO wanted again to enthusiastically and responsibly plan the future process and continuation of the project.  Aiming at the engagement of other regional groups and representatives, as well as valuing the significance and relevance of group work, "Zartonk-89" NGO invited a meeting-discussion.  In order to enlarge the frame of "Democratic youth" social platform formed in the result of our activities, Vigen Mkrtchyan - the Project leader, and Ani Melkonyan - the person responsible for the regional project, conducted meetings in such regions of RA, where the project is designed to be realized in the future too.  Again 16-20 years old young people were present at the meeting, who expressed their great interest in the establishment of democratic institutions in Armenia.  Sharing with our experience and acquired results, we presented our steps and future goals for the project continuation and the enlargement of the newly shaped platform to the other beneficiaries.  Ani Melkonyan - the person responsible for the regional project presented the future activities, the importance of selection of the target groups of the project and the mission and goals of the project.  At the meeting our beneficiaries asked their questions and, as future democratic leaders, expressed their great desire and enthusiasm to engage in regional projects.
Ani, who is responsible for the regional projects, will share with her experience and skills in the enlargement and promotion of "Democratic youth" platform.

Teamwork.
Hello,

Teamwork.
I am Ani.  I summarized the "Power of democracy" training-course within "ICT as a Tool for Young Voices" program and presented the "Democratic youth" platform to our young beneficiaries.  It was of my own responsibility to hear people, who were competent and motivated, had their own views on the solution of democracy issue in Armenia.  This meeting was going in a ease and friendly atmosphere, where each opinion and suggestion was heard and definitely was to contribute to the enlargement and reinforcement of our frame in the future.  In the end of the meeting the question forms were distributed amongst the participants, where they had to answer and express their opinion on the issues, which were related to the foundation and development of democracy.  Of course, it was interesting for us to hear the positions of the future democratic young people.  I, as the person responsible for the region projects, aim at the continuation of the project leader Vigen Mkrtchyan because the reaction of the youth was strong, which is the source of our motivation.

«BUILDING AUTONOMY IN RURAL AREAS» Progress Report:










The main objective of the «Building autonomy in rural areas» project was to help and promote the autonomy of young people in 2 regions of the Republic of Armenia and in 2 villages of Nagorno Karabagh (Nagorno Karabagh is also known as Artsakh). The project implemented Zartonk 89 NGO. «Building autonomy in rural areas» project was approved on 01.11.2015, money was transfered by Otto Per Mille Chiesa Valdese on 28.12.15, but Zartonk-89 NGO received it on 01.02.16 so we started immediately the implementation of the project. 

 The duration of the project was 3 months. During the 1st month we carried out the preparatory work, certificate preparation, contacting NGOs in Armenia (Vanadzor, Martuni) and Nagorno Karabagh (Shushi and Tigranakert), spreading open calls in order to inform and select participants considering participant's age, motivation and activity. In Lori region we contacted Zartonk-89 NGO's representative in Vanadzor and «NGO center» Civil Society Development NGO (non-governmental organization) who provided us free working place to realize our 4 day training course. They also helped us to distribute open call of our training course and to select participants. In Gegharkunik region we contacted Zartonk-89 NGO's representative in Martuni and Martuni Infotun, Martuni Women's Community Council (MWCC) NGO who also provided us free working place to implement our 4 day training course. In Nagorno Karabagh (also known as Artsakh) we contacted Artsakh Youth Development Center (AYDC) NGO who provided us free working place and helped to distribute open call in order to select participants for our training course. In each place we had 20 participants, so in 4 place in total we had 80 participants. We implemented 4 day training course in each place.
The 1st day we met with participants, presented our project, modules of our training course, created a positive atmosphere for teamwork and collaboration. We took a time to present that our project was supported with funds from Otto per Mille of the Waldensian Church of Italy. The main objective of our first meeting was creating a climate of confidence and mutual respect between young participants. 2nd day activities were about building autonomy, active citizenship, civic engagement, developing sensitivity and positive critical ability towards themselves and society. 3rd day our main topics were «crisis», «stress» and «conflict», our participants discovered about of origins of those words, had intense discussions and team working, learnt and developed strategies to understand, manage and overcome crisis and stress, how to transform and constructively resolve personal and interpersonal conflicts. 4th day we devoted to learning of different educational, social, learning tools and ways to observe, rise up and find solutions to community related issues (social media, e-learning, discussion groups, etc). In each place in the end of the training course participants received certificates and we had a time for feedback and evaluation of the training course through a distributed questionnaires to fill in, it was anonymous so our participants could freely express their opinions about our 4 day training and about our trainers. Whole training course was based on non-formal methodology. During all the project we were distributing information and photo reports on website of Zartonk-89 NGO, on social media like Facebook page, Facebook group. 


The center «Noyan Tapan» also distributed information and photo reports. Surely we can say that our participants obtained team working skills, they freely expressed their own thoughts, ideas and proposals for future social changes, they developed their sense of autonomy, active citizenship and civic engagement, they learnt how to face and overcome crisis and stress, also how to use different educational, social and learning tools in order to observe, rise up and find solutions in their communities, they established a culture of dialogue. We are sure that they became more autonome, dinamic and initiative to bring positive changes in their life and in the society. 

The project summary and effectiveness:

Vigen  presented the Effectiveness and Engagement
platforms in GlobalGiving.
"Zartonk-89" NGO, summarizing "Providing education for 150 children in Armenia" program, wanted to plan with enthusiasm and responsibly the future process and continuation of this program.  Being aimed at the engagement of other regional groups and representatives, as well as valuing the significance and topicality of group activity, the program invited a meeting-discussion.  The program leader Vigen Mkrtchyan, the people responsible for the regional program, the key employees of the organization were present at the meeting.  The Project Leader and the Regional program leader, summarizing the program, presented during the meeting Effectiveness and Engagement platforms in GlobalGiving, their significance and value, the importance of participating in  Webinars, as well as presented how (by what instruments) to get appropriate scores in order to contribute the organization's rating increase in GlobalGiving and how the scores work.
EVIDENCE PLANNING.
Thank you GlobalGiving! 
Hello, I am Vigen - the regional program leader and the one who is responsible for the program.  Valuing the program's future process and topicality in our organization, as well as being aimed at hearing opinions and offers of the other representatives through teamwork, I invited a meeting-discussion, during which I presented the Effectiveness and Engagement platforms in GlobalGiving and the DIY Toolkit component, which, was a rapid and effective way to plan the future process of the program and to understand how to implement our program more effectively using the 4 parts of this platform. We operated EVIDENCE PLANNING component, which is a quick way to make up and improve what we are trying to accomplish with the help of our program.  This component gives an amazing chance to focus on the main activity of the organization or the program and understand the values that will be reached by the organization due to proper planning of the main activity of its program by taking 4 ranges as a platform.  We used this platform to get the logical evidence which, as planned, will help us to solve our problems.
Thank you GlobalGiving! 
Operating EVIDENCE PLANNING component, my organization and I learned to share easily and fast what we are trying to do in our program.  It taught us to easily understand the effect of our work on our beneficiaries, society, as well as activities of our and other various organizations.  We also learned to plan our future activity as a joint team.  Besides, it taught us to think on how we can be helpful to our beneficiaries by using our basic interests and skills in this large world.  I think this is the primary value learnt by us due to the usage of this component.
Teamwork.

  At the second part of the meeting, the other members and I answered the questions of the EVIDENCE PLANNING component and expressed the answers in pictures.  The meeting was saturated with discussions, various opinions, and offers.  We believe that the teamwork promotes in this way the reinforcement of the primary activity of the program, as well as the engagement of beneficiaries from other regions.  EVIDENCE PLANNING component caused great interest, and we planned with the team leader of the regional representatives to include this component in other programs too.
As a result, the organization increased its rating becoming Superstar (formerly - Leader) due to team work done with high responsibility.

Our achievements’ in Martuni and Vanadzor Communities:

                              Vigen conducts training
Long-term goal of the project ICT as a Tool for Young Voices: To promote involvement of
youth in the process of strengthening democratic institutions in Armenia. In the frame of the Project we organized "the Power of democracy" training course in the two Armenian Communities; the general and specific aim of the Project is:
1. To promote involvement of the Youth in the process of strengthening democratic institutions in Armenia, also to teach and disseminate democratic values among the Youth,
2. to improve skills among the Youth in the following spheres: Freedom of speech, tolerance and diversity. 40 participants were engaged in the training course from two Armenian communities, who were interested in the strengthening and development process of the Democratic Institutions in Armenia. 
Vigen, one of the activists of the Organization, who was one of the trainers of the Project, will share his thoughts about the Training.

Hello, I am Vigen. Within "ICT as a Tool for Young Voices" program, I implemented "Power of democracy" seminar course. 16-20 years old intellectual, motivated and purposeful 40 young people from 2 communities of Armenia were selected as the target group. The selection of this group was measured; they demonstrated a great interest towards the establishment of democratic intuitions in Armenia, and surely had their significant role in the establishment process. Being a trainer, I hold the course with the help of non-formal education methodology - through interactive games.
The course started with acquaintance game, during which the participants were showing the symbol typical of them. The course lasted 3 days. Diversity, free speech, and tolerance were the primary and key themes. At the time of the course, the participant young people were assigned to depict images of "democracy in their eyes" and, recognizing the shield as a sampler, they depicted symbols typical to democracy.  Actually, they were given the opportunity to express their ideas and perceives on democratic values. In addition to theoretical material, the course was full of the situation, role games, which contributed strengthening the noble ideas of free speech, diversity, tolerance. The course was regularly accompanied by discussions and debated, during which the young people were trying to freely express their opinions and positions and collectively search for ways contributing the increase of awareness level and democratic values in Armenia. As a result, a social platform of "Democratic young people" was formed, and our regional representatives have the full opportunity to share their ideas, concerns, and problems to try to search collectively for ways to establish of democratic institution in Armenia. At the end of the course, I valued the opinions, visions, offers and observations of the participants, who filled appropriate evaluation forms, which subsequently will promote the increase of effectiveness of this program in other regions of Armenia.

In Results:

The level of the knowledge towards democratic values, particularly free speech, free choice, tolerance and plurality of ideas, was increased by 40 young people in 2 communities of 2 regions of Armenia.
Our beneficiaries acquired abilities with the help of which they could use their knowledge in practice.
The comprehension and the role of democratic values was increased amongst the population of 2 communities.

Democratic institutions developed and spread all over the country, people changed their attitude towards the democracy bringing the democratic values into life.

Our achievement in Vayots - Dzor region:

Gayane during the lesson
“Zartonk89” NGO is continuing the program “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” in different regions of Armenia, where this important and targeted plan has not been done yet. We are representing our success in Vayk, which is situated in Vayots -Dzor region. 22 teenagers have taken part in this project, of which 15 girls and 7 boys, who were left out from the opportunity to receive basic education because of difficult social problems and lack some knowledge for their peers. The program “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” is for those, who are considered risky group, that is some of them did not attend schools as they had to do hard work because of poor social conditions and they did not have enough basic education. Those problems affected the stereotypes of the following children of risky group, their psychology was changed and they became more self-contained, underestimated their personal skills and became disappointed. Those things psychologically affect our beneficiaries, who become isolated from both their environment and peers. That is why along with basic education the children are supplied with psychological services that help them to be integrated into the learning process making children more motivated and versed.
Volunteers of "Zartonk-89” have left for program implementation place, Vayots- Dzor region, met with training participants and recommended to write a story about the training. Here is Gayane's story.
Hello, I am Gayane. I am 14, from Vayk community of Vayots- Dzor region.
I was selected to participate in “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” program. I had attended the High School of Vayk, but then I could not continue my education, receive the needful basic education necessary to a person for interaction in the environment, have indispensable knowledge because of my social conditions. I am very happy that I was given the opportunity to participate “Providing Education for 150 children in Armenia” program in Vayk.
At the program available trainings were organized through games. The material was provided easily. That's the reason that program participants took participation in the training with great interest, without being absent from classes, highlighting the role of basic education in their lives. The training gave me new knowledge, I became more spirited and sociable, acquired new friends. The learning process was goodly organized through games, which made the learning process more interesting. First of all, I met many good and kind people. Everything was very interesting, especially the organization of the training games and classes in the nature.

The used learning methods were very interesting, especially the fact that we also were participating in the training presenting additional information. I would like that such training programs be more, those would include new beneficiaries, and new teenagers would take advantage of educational programs. First of all, I want to thank the program supporters, Global Giving team, and the organizers for implementing such an interesting and training program.

 

Our achievements’ in Gegharqunik and Lori region:






"Zartonk-89" NGO implemented with the support of IDA (International Development Alliance) the "Power of Democracy" project in 2 communities in Armenia.  14-20 year regional young people motivated, active and believing democracy establishment in Armenia were selected as the target group.  3-day course helped regional young people to make the understanding of the noble idea of the democracy, as well as of modern democracy principles.  The course was implemented with the help of non-formal educational methodology - interactive games.  The main themes of our training were freedom of speech, tolerance, diversity.  The course started with acquaintance game, we well as with role and group games.  The teams were given the opportunity during the group game to make jointly, as one collective power, placards with headlines of "Democracy in my eyes," and the best works were awarded with promotion prizes. The courses periodically were accompanied by discussions, and regional young people were expressing during those discussions their opinions on democracy, democratic values, democratic institution establishment process in Armenia.  As a result, "democratic young people" social platform was created, where our regional representatives have the opportunity to share with their ideas, concerns, problems and can try as future democratic leaders to search for ways to increase the level of democracy.  We hope, that "Power of Democracy" project will be ongoing and that community representatives from other regions of RA will also join the project.