Project Information - American Councils for International Education

Active Youth for Civil Society
Armenia
Professional Fellowship Program: Outbound Project Report
June 23-30, 2015
PFP Fellow: Varduhi Dadunts, Harmony NGO
US Participant: Jill Canfield from Pacific ad Asian Affairs Council NGO, State of Hawaii
This project was implemented by the support of American Councils and US State Department.
As a professional fellow I was placed at Pacific ad Asian Affairs Council NGO, State of Hawaii during
October-November 2014.
PFP is an opportunity to learn new skills, a chance to meet new people, a possibility to improve your
experience, a way to ensure self-development. PFP program gave all these professional opportunities plus
also personal relations and cross-cultural understanding.
Having 5 weeks of PFP internship at “Pacific and Asian Affairs Council” NGO I was able to learn a lot about
working with youth, mobilizing them for different campaigns, as well as youth involvement in policy
reforms and decision making processes.
Within the framework of the outbound project together with my US supervisor I tried to practice the gained
knowledge, experience and new approaches to mobilize youth to support our community development and
democracy building processes.
Our project was addressed to four main goals:
1) To encourage young people to have active citizenship behavior through conducting for them
trainings on Leadership and Volunteering topics as well as practice the gained knowledge by
designing and implementing a volunteering project in their community.
2) Help state officials to understand the effective impact of active youth through conducting meetings
with government representatives and discuss the importance of cooperation and partnership.
3) Share US experience of fundraising methods with our NGOs as fundraising issue is one of the big
issues for Armenian NGOs.
4) Share US experience on working with youth: mobilizing, capacity building, changing behavior and
encouraging becoming a part of civil society.
5) Learn from Armenian experience.
During the period of the outbound project all the activities were addressed to support the abovementioned
goals. The activities were successful, exciting, motivating the targeted groups and were effective based on the
feedback provided by the project participants.
Within the frameworks of the projects trainings on leadership, volunteering, fundraising as well as volunteer
project (plus flash-mob), meetings with Municipality representatives and NGOs working in youth and civil
society sectors were conducted.
 Meeting with Ashtarak Mayor and Vice Mayor
Before the start of the project we had an official
meeting at Ashtarak Municipality with Mayor
Armen Antonyan and Vice Mayor Gevorg
Yeghiazaryan.
The goal of the meeting was to form cooperation,
discuss the previous successful projects
implemented by Harmony NGO in Ashtarak city,
get Municipality support for the planned project.
The Mayor mentioned in his speech that they are
happy to work with local NGOs, especially with
Harmony NGO, which supports to activate youth
in the area, mobilize community to participate in
decision making processes. Vice Mayor ensured
that cooperation with Harmony NGO was based on a constructive bases and Municipality always was
supportive to their initiatives. They mentioned the “Best City Council” event initiated by the Harmony NGO,
which was very successful, motivating and had effective impact on improving city council – community
relations.
Jill presented US NGOs and especially PAAC functions working with youth and community, including how
collaborating across sectors helps NGOs increase effectiveness and achieve outcomes to improve the quality
of life in Hawaii. Future possible cooperation with US partners was also discussed during the meeting.
Information about the meeting was posted at municipality FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1124826384201084.1073742052.630011120349282&type=3
 Training on leadership and volunteering in Aragatsotn
region, Ashtarak city, on June 24-25.
The training was organized for about 25 young people from
Ashtarak area. The aim of the first day of the training was to
improve their leadership skills and the second day –
volunteering skills. Jill Canfield was the expert of the first day
of the training and was the main trainer for the second day.
The whole training was based on interactive methods. Each
participant had chance to share his/her experience in
leadership and/or volunteering. The second part of the
volunteering training was based on developing a team project to conduct a volunteer project in Ashtarak city.
Participants developed 4-5 ideas on volunteer project and one of them was selected by the majority to be
implemented the next day (June 26). The volunteer project was developed based on the instructions learned
during the training days. Clear action plan was developed, list of needed supplies was prepared, roles and
responsibilities were clarified for each participant.
Information about the tarining was posted at municipality web page:
http://www.ashtarak.am/Pages/Home/newsdetails.aspx?nID=676#.VZY3Qfmqqko
 Volunteer project in Ashtarak city on June26.
The volunteer project was aimed to teach kids of “Manushak” kindergarten road safety rules, increase
awareness among parents and conduct a flash-mob action in the street where the road lights were placed.
During the event all the participants were wearing T-shirts with a message: I LOVE ASHTARAK; I AM A LEADER…
At the first part of the event all the participants met at kindergarten yard, did final preparation works, and once
again discussed their roles and responsibilities. One group of youthstopped parents and distributed messages
among them, such as - LIFE DOESN’T HAVE RESET BUTTON: DRIVE SAFE; YOUR FAMILY IS WAITING FOR YOU;
HUG YOUR KIDS AT HOME, BUT BELT THEM IN THE CAR; DO NOT MIX DRINKING AND DRIVING; STOP
ACCIDENTS, BEFORE YOU STOP THEM, BETTER TO ARRIVE LATE THAN NEVER.
The other group stopped kids and asked them simple traffic rules, and later gave them some instructions.
During the last part of the event kids drew with chalks on the playground on road safety and traffic rules. At the
very end kids were gathered in one place and the leader youth were summarizing the event, what they have
learned and repeating the messages of the day.
Kindergarten teachers were also excited and supported youth during the processes of the event.
Information about the event was posted at municipality web page:
http://www.ashtarak.am/Pages/Home/newsdetails.aspx?nID=677#.VZY3lPmqqko
 Seminars on volunteering and simple fundraising in Yeregnadzor and Goris cities, on June 27,29
The seminars were conducted for the youth clubs of Women Resource Centers. The facilitator was Jill Canfield,
who was sharing US experience in general and PAAC experience in particular. The seminars improved
participants understanding on volunteering (the idea of volunteering, announcing, recruiting, orientation,
volunteer project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, performance appreciation). The second
part of the seminar was addressed to fundraising for our goals /mission. Different tips of fundraising were
presented which are successful in the US. The seminars were interactive and the participants were able to share
also their experience both on volunteering and fundraising.
Information about the seminars and meetings is posted at:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1072049392808667.1073741876.278254622188152&type=3
 Meetings and business lunches with NGOsworking in youth and civil society areas, US Embassy
Pubic Affairs section, American Councils for International Education
Meetings were conducted both in Yerevan, Ashtarak, Yereghnadzor and Goris cities.
The meeting with Nane Abrahamian from American Councils was aimed first to welcome Jill Canfield, discuss the
agenda of the whole project, discuss logistic and organizational issues as well as possible support from American
Councils.
The meeting with Lianna Sahakyan and Janette Lehoux from US Embassy Pubic Affairs section was aimed to
present the PFP outbound project and the agenda discuss possible future cooperation with Embassy Pubic
Affairs section.
The meetings with the NGO representatives were aimed to share US and Armenian experience on working with
youth for building democracy, civil society and active citizenship. Also there were discussed the possible
cooperation strategies. The meetings were interesting and fruitful for both Armenian NGOs and Jill Canfield as
lots of new ideas were shared, learned from each other and thought for future implementation.
The following NGOs representatives were met: Alexander Shagafyan - CIVITAS NGO, Natalya Martirosyan Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Armenian Committee NGO, Ruzanna Torozyan - Goris Women Development
Resource Center Foundation, Karine Movsisyan - Yereghnadzor Women Resource Center NGO, Anna Danielyan
- Partnership and Teaching NGO, Tatevik Bezhanyan – People in Need Czech NGO, Jirayr Martirosyan - Goris
Creators NGO.
 Cultural evets / sightseeing
Parallel to sharing professional knowledge, skills and ideas there were organized cultural tours, sightseeing
activities as well. This is also important for US participants to understand our culture, learn about our history,
see some tourist and historical places. For this reason we had a sightseeing tour in Yerevan, visited Cafesjan
Museum, had a wonderful tour to see Etchmiadzin Cathedral – the Mother Church of Armenian Apostolic
Church, On the way to South Armenia we stopped at Areni Winery - the Factory of Armenian famous Areni
wine, we had a fantastic tour to Tatev Monastery– built in 9th century, had a tour viathe world longest
reversible Aerial Tramway constructed in 2010 from Tatev to Halidzor village. And an amazing tour to mountain
caves in old Goris area, where people lived hundreds of years ago.
Prepared by Varduhi Dadunts and Jill Canfield
15.07.2015