Programme & action: Youth in Action programme, action 3.1.2. training course
Dates: 11-19 May 2014
Venue: Yerevan, Armenia
Participants: Josef Stříbrný, Lucie Maturová
Project report:
Refresh your Russian, this is Caucasus! People from the Czech Republic, Italy, baltic countries, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia just met for the one week long seminar on Youth policies in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. Located in the Caucasus, a very problematic region for Armenians, Yerevan is trying to be a modern city, overcome the difficult history and show itself to the world with the Ararat mountain overlooking the city and the ambitious cascade project in the city center.
During the seminar we have seen the Youth policies from different angles; an official view from the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, a local NGO discribing their activities and problems, local kids showing their winning projects on human rights, and by doing a survey among the Youth in Yerevan. We discussed Youth problems and policies in our countries and were encourage to find out how to involve the Youth in the making process of those policies. Not surprisingly the biggest problem for the Youth anywhere seems to be unemployment. The other topic we learned about was the Erasmus+ project that should replace and unite various current projects of the European Union. We learned about all kinds of different activities within the Erasmus+ and we tried to prepare some projects ourselves.
Among various activities organizers planned a tasty barbecue with folk music and dances, visit to the old churches, Garni temple, monastery,
international dinner and optional visit to the karaoke bar. We also hired Lada Niva for the free time slot in the official programme and did our own exiting jorney to see the biggest lake of Armenia, Sevan. The roads provided us with a great view on the Caucasus nature and herds of cows and sheep always crossing the road without any fear. At Sevan, we enjoyed tasty fresh fish and crawfish from the lake.
Not beeing with our organizers we realized also one sad thing about Armenia. People try to rip off tourists nearly everywhere and some knowledge of Russian becomes a must. Until the Armenians don’t change this manner, they wouldn’t be able to welcome more visitors bringing the necessary money for the future development and resurrection of Armenia. But all things considered, we had a lovely and very inspiring experience that will stay with us forever.
Josef Stříbrný
