Capacity Building

This course, which ran from October 13 to November 27, was aimed to enhance conflict resolution skills among the youth in the northern regions of Armenia by fostering a constructive approach and developing their capacity to find real and rational solutions to conflict situations on daily bases.

Peace Dialogue NGO intends to implement follow-up initiatives in the future. Currently, a manual is being developed summarising the techniques and tools applied to analyse the stories discussed during the course, as well as the methodology employed. Using the manual as a guide, Peace Dialogue will organise a training of trainers in the near future which will give the young participants an opportunity to conduct similar courses among their peers by applying the same tools and techniques.

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.

During the seven-day meeting, the young people participated in photo, video, graffiti, and civic journalism workshops, got acquainted with the journalistic basics and tools, and had the opportunity to apply them in practice. The trainings were conducted by the national group leaders. The Armenian team was represented by independent journalist Mane Papyan and Marianna Khazhakyan from Peace Dialogue NGO.

On 19-23 July 2021, in cooperation with its partners Une Terre Culturelle Association and German-French Youth Office, Peace Dialogue NGO implemented a five-day youth project under the title Journalism Without Borders. The goal of the project was to introduce young people representing Armenia, Germany and France to modern journalism, a number of social media tools, as well as to address the existing issues and challenges in the field and discuss ways of overcoming them.

With the support of experts, 10 psychologists and social workers from Nagorno-Karabakh got acquainted with the advanced tools and methodologies for identifying war-affected children’s psychological problems and for providing assistance to children through various didactic materials, techniques, role-plays, case studies and relaxation exercises. The trainers gave the participants the opportunity to improve their theoretical and practical knowledge which will be applicable while working with children with anxiety, fears and phobias. The training process will be ongoing during the upcoming months.

During the training, the participants discussed manifold women’s rights issues existing in their regions as well as addressed the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on women and girls in the South Caucasus. Besides, the participants were introduced to a number of effective methods and tools for identifying women’s issues and carrying out a root cause analysis in the respective regions.

On 8-10 August 2020, Peace Dialogue NGO conducted a-three-day training entitled CIVIL SOCIETY SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC OVERSIGHT PROCESSES OF HUMAN RIGHTS CONDITIONS IN THE ARMENIAN ARMY. The meeting was aimed at building capacity of the representatives from civil society organizations operating in the Republic of Armenia’s regions and Yerevan city in the field of human rights monitoring, thus seeking to establish a public group for monitoring the defense-sector related activities in the scope of the Action Plan 2020-2022 deriving from the National Strategy on Human Rights Protection (HRAP 2020-2022).