“Women for Development” NGO President Gohar Markosyan was honored to be nominated for the Smart Peace Prize annual award. The ceremony took place on January 25, 2024 in Paris.
We are thrilled and extremely proud to announce that this year the Smart Peace Prize committee decided to award the prize to “Women for Development” NGO represented by President Gohar Markosyan, for long-term work in the field of conflict management education, integrating this concept in education system and continuous efforts in educating conflict management skills among children starting from early age.
The idea of this annual prize was suggested by “Leaders for Peace” NGO back in 2019, uniting over 40 prominent politicians and leaders from around the globe, who possess rich experience in managing various sensitive and crisis situations.
“Leaders for Peace” NGO was established by the former Prime Minister of France Jean-Pierre Rafarrin, with the goal of consolidating the efforts of prominent politicians for the purpose of reducing conflicts and protecting human rights through education and awareness raising.
The prize was awarded to G. Markosyan by the President of East Timor and co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize Jose Ramos-Horta, who emphasized the big investment of our organization in spreading the culture of peace in Armenia.
In her speech, G. Markosyan expressed her gratitude to the organizers for such high-rank recognition of WFD NGO’s activities and long-term work:
“In 2002, when we began peace education activities, I often started speeches with “Today more than ever we need peace.” Little did I know how relevant those words would become, and that I myself would be in need for peace during the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and various corners of the world. Looking back to the year 2002, it is worth mentioning that Armenia faced challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and the still unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. These challenges were reflected in family lives, which in turn were leading to disputes among schoolchildren in schools. And that is when we recognized the strong need for conflict management education and teaching children empathy, respect towards each other and the necessity to cultivate ideas of peace to prevent future conflicts and violence.
Our path was very difficult, since the concept of Peace education was completely new in Armenia, and there was lack of materials and handbooks for teaching and many educators were resisting the new ideas, nevertheless, we overcame these challenges united by big purpose and mission.
I am proud to say that more than 6,000 teachers from 850 schools and approximately 70,000 and 1500 parents from all corners of Armenia were trained using our methodological handbooks and materials. Our success was possible due to a cohesive team, solid educational strategy, dedicated professionals, teachers, students, parents, and of course the financial support from from our main donor, the German Bread for the World organization, and we are forever grateful for your noble recognition of our long-term work.
The recent conflicts underline the importance of teaching peace and management education from very young age, and as I mentioned in the beginning of my speech, now more than ever there is need for peace – for dignified peace that our ancient people deserve. Hence, I turn to you, respected ladies and gentlemen, let’s work together, hand-in-hand, to ensure the new generation learns, applies and preserves peaceful conflict resolution across all countries in our region and globally”.
The prize presented to “Women for Development” NGO was made by famous Iranian painter and sculptor Mariam Azad.
On behalf of WFD NGO, Gohar Markosyan presented the symbolic “Peace Lesson” painting to the “Leaders of Peace” organization. It was painted by Anjelika Tadevosyan, 13 years old student from Gyumri painting school after S. Merkulov, in frames of the “Power of Peace” drawing competition, announced by WFD NGO back in 2018.
Please watch the video for the event highlights.