On October 26, 27 2015 the OSCE Office in Yerevan was full of schoolchildren. The debate club members of the Youth Engaged in Society project from Kapan, Sisian, Masis and Ashtarak came to a civic seminar to the OSCE Office in Yerevan. Despite the fact that it wasn’t the first time that the schoolchildren were hearing about the OSCE and that they had general knowledge about it, they had totally different feelings when they personally visited the OSCE Yerevan Office, communicated with the staff and felt the work rhythm. At the beginning Gohar Avagyan, the National Public Information Officer of OSCE Office in Yerevan presented the general activities of the OSCE. Participants were listening very attentively and watched films about the OSCE mission, activities and projects. During the visit children also had an opportunity to get familiar with the mission and mandate of the OSCE Yerevan office and their projects. Participants also got informed about how the OSCE Yerevan office helped Armenia to reform its human rights legislation, policy and institutions and specifically learned about the rights of the national minorities. Working with national minority organizations, the OSCE Office in Yerevan helps such communities to better represent their needs for safeguarding their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identities. Another topic of the seminar was dedicated to the gender equality issues in Armenia and on how OSCE Yerevan office helped the RA authorities and civil society in improving the gender legislation to foster gender equality and stop gender discrimination.
As a result of this seminar the debate club members were very excited and told that from now on they would follow the activities of the OSCE more attentively and would do their best to participate in the OSCE seminars and events organized in their regions.
