© 2022. PHOTO JULIE POTELOIN
Journalism Without Borders cultural exchange program was finalized on October 21-27 in Armenia with the involvement of young participants from Armenia, France, and Germany. The national groups representing the three countries were composed of school-age children and students who are actively involved in their community life.
The initial stage of the project was launched as early as 2020 and was implemented in a hybrid format. The meetings among the international group were taking place online due to the COVID-19 restrictions, whilst the national teams had the opportunity to participate in offline workshops on the ground.
Finally, in 2021, in the scope of a new stage of the project, the national teams had the opportunity to travel to 3 countries of the project and experience a real exchange.
- 1st phase of the project took place in April 2022, in Berlin, Germany.
- 2nd phase – in July 2022, in Marseille, France.
- 3rd phase – in October 2022, in Armenia.
“The goal of the project was introducing young people media tools and skills that are required nowadays for being an active social media consumer. In addition we were striving to give a chance to the participants to discover the Armenian culture and history during their one-week-stay in Armenia:” Marianna Khazhakyan, project manager from the Armenian project partner Peace Dialogue and leader of the Armenian team.
Where exactly in Armenia?
– Armenia was an unknown country for the participants, so many of them were highly motivated to discover Armenian history, local traditions, culture and art during their visit. The events were mainly taking place in Lori region and Yerevan where the young participants paid visits to several youth and civil institutions as well as to a number of entertainment and historical-cultural places.
What was the program for Tezh Ler (Lori Region)?
-A media workshop was organized in Tezh Ler during which the participants learned how to differentiate fake and real photos published in the media, how to use many modern media sources and tools more efficiently and competently. In addition, the young participants reflected on the topic of war and peace through art by drawing and then sharing their ideas, perceptions and the diversity of those over the concept of peace.
Where did the participants visit?
- The international group of young participants visited COAF SMART center which is situated in Debet village. They got acquainted with the features of non-formal educational activities aimed at the development of children and youth in Armenia and explored the opportunities and modern approaches offered by the center.
- In Vanadzor LOFT center, the group had a meeting with the president of Peace Dialogue NGO, Edgar Khachatryan. During the discussion, the participants addressed their questions regarding the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the further developments and 44-day war, as well as reflected on the Armenian-Azerbaijani and the Armenian-Turkish relations and on the problems of young people in Armenia caused by the conflict.
- To learn more about the spiritual and historical-cultural life of Armenia, the group visited Sevan Lake and Geghard Monastery.
- The program also envisaged a City Rally, when the young participants got to know the city of Yerevan. Solving the tasks, along with observing environmental problems, local habits and daily life, the young people visited many sights of Yerevan, got acquainted with the history and architecture of the capital city.
“This exchange broke down a number of stereotypes about each other and undoubtedly contributed to the motivation growth among the young people to be involved in media field. I very much appreciated the fact that we had a trilingual interpretation for the participants from the three respective countries. This helped those participants who didn’t speak English very well or at all to be fully engaged in the process:” Mane Papyan, facilitator and leader of the Armenian team.
As a result of the whole project, with the help of the facilitator, the participants created a blog in order to collate and distribute their media works (photos, videos, other visual materials) done throughout the whole period of the project.
The project is implemented by Peace Dialogue NGO (Armenia), Une Terre Culturelle association (France), PangeraNGO and Klubhouse center (Germany) with the financial support of Franco-German Youth Office and Erasmus+.
