Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Training Course
Venue: Yerevan, Armenia
Dates: 3-11 June 2017
Participants: Dominik Zábelka, Petra Rychlíková
Participants’ fee: €60
Please read the info pack
Hosting organisation: Armenian Progressive Youth NGO (Armenia) & Nicola Arts (United Kingdom)
Participating organisations: Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, UK, Turkey
Project report:
Our great Armenian adventure begun 2nd of June when me and Petra flew from Prague to Kiev. Thanks to 20 h stopover we could have explored most interesting Kiev sights, such as many cathedrals, monuments, and Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square). Following day, we finally got to capital city of Armenia – Yerevan and immediately started getting to know other participants. The training course was called “Breaking gender barriers through Youth Work: A Quest 4 Equality” and was full of great atmosphere, cooperation, and getting to know not only gender problematic. In this project participated people from 15 different countries, which gave us a wonderful background information into their countries, cultures and values. All of that happened in cosy hotel Capital near to Yerevan city centre.
The programme basically started in the arrival day, when we gathered in the conference room and were discussing some personal question. Day after we went through several icebreakers and went to the city for “Yerevan city rally” where we were talking with locals about gender situation in Armenia. Next day was the hardest one, as we were talking about basic gender vocabulary, this activity went into passionate discussion. The third day we started to exploring Armenia situation even more with study visits to Women´s Support Centre and to PINK Armenia. Thank to these visits we got inside into domestic violence and situation of LGBT+ community. The fourth day we had an opportunity to hold our own workshop, and after that we went to panel discussion/conference where we find more about Armenia and women rights. Next day we went to explore Armenia, so visited Geghard, Garni, and Armenian family, who honoured us with a typical Armenian dinner. The last two days were full of discussions about our countries in comparison to each other.
To sum up, Armenian Progressive Youth and NICOLA, who oversaw this project, have done a great job. We found many unexpected things about Armenia and ourselves. There were no problems with organisations or participant, and I believe that goals of this project were reached.
Petra Rychlíková
