“We are trying to instill in them the feeling that they are part of society. We want for our youth to realized that they are not our future, but our present. They need to make changes and decide how our future needs to be,” said the “Youth House, Open Youth Center” founder Gayane Arakelyan while presenting the organization’s mission. According to her, the project is unique in that it is the first home for youth to be opened in Armenia. The center is open during the day, and 13- to 18-year-old children can visit to spend time there. Nothing is required of the children at the center; they can do whatever they want. They never want to participate in organized language, computer, or other classes, but instead they want to play games, use the internet, and walk around. There are already 300 members of the center, which opened in May of this year. Instead of spending time outside, children in Gyumri come here. According to Gayane Arakelyan, any youth who visits the center has every opportunity to self-educate, advance, and bring to life their own ideas. One of the goals, according to Gayane Arakelyan during her interview with “Aravot,” is to break several stereotypes.
When asked if it’s easy to break stereotypes in Gyumri, Gayane Arakelyan said that it’s not, and it requires a lot of time. “That’s the result of our team’s everyday work. We obviously notice a difference.” She said that the center organizes events where girls and boys have equal participation.
According to Arakelyan, in the beginning, it was strange for boys and for parents, and some didn’t let their daughters participate in the bike rides because they thought that girls shouldn’t ride bikes, since that’s an activity meant for boys. “As a result, we have 15 girls who became confident, and whose parents now look at them proudly when they see how much they’ve grown and become confident. Now, the girls are ready to defend their rights and to make changes in their community.”
Lusine Budaghyan
