We are happy to share several thoughts from youth in “Women for Development” NGO’s beneficiary communities, which they shared during our working meetings. These viewpoints are the best evaluation of our work, showcasing the organization’s long-term and consistent positive impact.
The most important change is that I am now able to communicate with people very well, since I have left all my complexes behind. I remember myself during our very first training, how shy I was – unable to respond even to those questions, which I knew I could definitely answer. I was so scared of saying something wrong, and very shy overall. But everything changed after our youth group was formed, and this is when I was so willing to participate in all the events without being afraid to express my opinions and ask questions. For me, being able to properly and freely communicate with people is one of the biggest changes in my behavior.
Another big change is volunteering. I knew about it only in theory, but I was never involved in anything like that. Becoming a member of Torosgyugh youth active group and participating in numerous volunteering initiatives and events empowered me to better understand the importance and positive impact of volunteerism both on ourselves and on our community. I even started to compare the quality of our organized events over the years, and I realized that those became so much better each year. This is because we have learnt from our mistakes. Our events became well-planned and organized, with each of us clearly understanding our roles in the process and most importantly, we all got into the habit of gathering after each event and reflecting on its pros and cons, and pointing out the weaknesses with the goal of avoiding repeating these mistakes in the future.
Besides, volunteering helped us reduce our education fees. Both Lusine and I have used this benefit, for which we are very grateful.
I’m not afraid to say that volunteering and trainings organized by WFD NGO have given me more experience, than those 4 years I have spent in the university. During all the theory lessons there I always had something to say, an interesting example to bring, and I was always getting questions about how did I know all this. While we were acquiring only theoretical knowledge at university, WFD NGO helped me apply that knowledge in practice. Besides knowledge and experience, volunteering has given me great friends and a wonderful community, and we have all noticed that village residents have positively shifted their mindset on our center and volunteering overall. Additionally, it is so motivating and empowering to know that we are bringing positive impact to our community with hard work, such as spreading joy and educating children. Due to my volunteer work, I was able to get a full financial waiver from my sophomore year through master’s degree studies, which was extremely important to me and my family.
I joined the youth group in 2018, and I have started to actively volunteer since about a year ago, when together with Julieta we decided to start a drawing club in the village. This initiative was also highly welcomed at the Academy, and they supported me with lesson planning, providing various methodologies of working with children of different age groups, and other things. It is very interesting to work with children. Not only I get to teach and strenghten my own knowledge on the subject, but I also get to learn a lot from them. I am grateful for the trust and for this opportunity, which led to establishment of a well equipped drawing club in Torosgyugh village, and community members’ enthusiasm and willingness to send their children for benefitting from this opportunity.
I also joined youth active group rather late. In the beginning, it was an unusual environment for me, but very interesting at the same time. This was the space, where one could come up with their own initiatives, express opinions and do something good for the benefit of the community. In the beginning, I was helping youth group with organizing various events, implementing different tasks entrusted to me, and later on, I decided to become a volunteer dance teacher for children and pass my skills to them. Of course, in the beginning it was difficult for me to single-handedly coordinate this work and do proper planning, but my older peers helped me and now I conduct dance lessons with no issues, children’s parents fully trust me, for which I am very proud and grateful.
I do volunteer work since 2018. For 3 years, I was leading an English club for village schoolchildren, which was the first and biggest experience for me. I got so much praise and encouragement from children’s parents, and later I received a proposal to participate in an educational program abroad from WFD NGO. I remember when back in the day my father did not allow me to leave for Poland for 10 days, and it made me very sad. But after speaking to Ms. Gohar, my father changed his decision, which made a very big impact on my further educational, professional and self-growth paths. Participation in that project was the first step which prepared me for applying for another program and studying abroad for 6 months. And the same father who refused to let me travel abroad even for 10 days, this time didn’t have any issues with me participating in a 6-months project.
During those 6 months I not only enriched my knowledge, but also gained an opportunity to visit many European cities, discover their culture, meet representatives of many nations and learnt to apply new cultural lenses, which I could never have done in my small village.
Upon my return, I restarted my volunteer work with new energy. I reopened the English club in Torosgyugh, as well as established a new club in Goghovit community.
This time I involved children’s parents and grandparents in the activities of my clubs, which brought new energy and made our meetings more interesting. For that reason, we are now organizing various events and meetings specifically for parents and grandparents, who share their experiences with children and start active inter-generational discussions. This, in turn, will bring them closer and create warm relationships between them. It was inspiring for me to see how pleased they have been to be invited to all our initiatives. These meetings have been mutually beneficial, the older generation would learn with children and feel younger, and children would learn new things from the older generation, such as village history, traditions and Armenian national cuisine.
During my work, I also try to motivate children by mentioning that there is lack of similar conditions for youth and schoolchildren in many villages, where they can only dream about having such centers. My work enabled me to visit many villages, and truly, we are so lucky to have our community centers and WFD NGO’s constant support to our initiatives. It is a big honor, as well as great experience and responsibility to coordinate works of such centers.
I joined youth center back in 2019, and I remember my very first event dedicated to the Book Day vividly, especially how excited and enthusiastic I was for taking part in it. Next year I started my reading club, which made me draw interesting parallels. In 2019 I was simply a participant, but precisely one year later I was the organizer of the event dedicated to the Book Day for community youth and children. Immediately after this event, I realized how much I had changed. Youth center became a platform for self-expression, confidence and new opportunities for me. During the very first trainings that I attended, I had a feeling that I would not be able to speak and I was hoping no one would ask me any question, because I would be so shy to respond. But everything changed later, when I realized that I was actually able to express opinions and engage in discussions, which boosted my confidence step-by-step. And my experience in voluntarily leading a book club for two years gave me a great opportunity of interacting with children, gaining new knowledge, as well as developing my professional skills, for which I am very grateful to WFD NGO.
I would also like to emphasize another positive transformation, which I gained from «Women for Development» NGO. When I wanted to enter the university, but due to some reasons had fears for applying, WFD NGO staff greatly supported me with their encouragement which helped me overcome those difficulties. And the successful experience of our community is also very important. I have always admired the volunteering done by older members of our community and observed how important their work was, which was another driving force and inspiration for my own success.
I was among those first young people who joined the youth group since the beginning, and I had a chance of interacting both with my older and younger peers. For me as well, a very important change has been the ability to communicate freely, to gain confidence as well as to have opportunities for doing voluteer work. Besides gaining experience and knowledge, volunteering helped me in reducing my university fees by 50% for two years. Interactions with community residents are also very important for me, along with gaining their trust. In the beginning, this process was challenging, but later, when they saw and valued our work, they started to trust and support us, which was very important and inspiring for all of us.
Due to volunteering I gained confidence. Previously I was always scared to take any step forward, thinking that I would fail. But thanks to the youth center I was able to overcome these fears and not be afraid of expressing my opinions. I became an initiative-taker, and with the support from WFD NGO and Ani, I was able to establish a drawing club. It’s been a year since I have been coordinating the club in the village and I notice huge changes in myself. The club has greatly helped me in working with children, finding proper ways of interacting with them and organizing their time more efficiently – skills I will certainly use in my future career.
I was always interested in youth work, and the center established in our village provided me with an opportunity for having and insider look at these processes. This work helped me express myself, learn from successes, analyze and have a critical approach towards my own work, as well as freely interact with people. But to me the most important was leaving all my complexes behind. My student years and prior work experience were not as helpful for me in doing this, as compared to youth work. During these two years I became the person I always aspired to be – someone who is able to calmly express her opinion, to interact freely even with complete strangers, and to develop and implement projects for the benefit of our community. WFD NGO empowered me to realize that my opinion matters, our ideas are valued, and some of them became a reality. This has helped me break a barrier, which I encountered for so many years, and these are truly remarkable changes that I would like to highlight.
