“Free Citizen” Civic Initiatives Support Center (“Free Citizen” CISC, Armenia) and Public Movement Multinational Georgia (PMMG, Georgia) in partnership with People in Need (Czech Republic) and SALTO Youth Eastern Europe and Caucasus Resource Center (Poland) completed the first phase of the implementation of the project “Young Activist” Young Civic Activists Capacity Building in Social Campaigning. The project is funded by the International Visegrad Fund (IVF, Bratislava, Slovakia) and the Netherlands Government. More than 200 young civic activists from the regions of Armenia and Georgia were recruited for participation in the workshops conducted by experienced trainers and experts.
Five workshops were organized in Aragatsotn, Kotayq, Tavush, Gegharkunik, and Shirak marzes (regions) of Armenia, and five in Kvemo-Kartli, Samtskhe-Javakhety, Kakheti, and Ajara regions of Georgia. The aim of the workshops was to raise participants’ awareness of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Eastern Partnership, and the Visegrad 4 format, and to provide general information on campaigning, including social media, public speaking, and debating, as well as other relevant topics. During the workshops, participants had the possibility to discuss issues they have identified as more relevant for young people of their region such as environmental protection, unemployment, including among disabled people, high level of migration (labor migration), low level of civic and political engagement of youth, especially women, limited opportunities for development and leisure (absence of sport and cultural clubs) for youth in the regions, especially in the rural areas, stereotypes and prejudices in various fields, minority rights, poor infrastructure, including the quality of roads, bad transport connections,, limited access to information, the vulnerability of the local population to fake news in various fields, education-related issues (school infrastructure, access to higher education, access of women to education). During the next stage of the Project, seven more workshops will be organized in the remaining marzes of Armenia and in the capital, Yerevan.
Based on the workshop results, 20 young people from Armenia and 10 from Georgia will be selected to participate in a 5-day Summer School in Armenia in June 2018.
Thematic workshops and a special networking session for Armenian and Georgian civic activists are planned for the event.
In addition, a Regional Youth Conference on Civic Activism is scheduled to take place in Yerevan following the Summer School in June 2018. Sixty participants from the workshops will be selected to attend the Conference.
Finally, 10 young people from Armenia and 5 from Georgia will be invited to participate in an 8-day study trip to the Czech Republic and other Visegrad countries in July 2018.
“Free Citizen” Civic Initiatives Support Center press service
