‘They will build a great future’: the EU4Youth Alumni sharing their experience with youth communities in Armenia
“Every year, we work with 10-15 young people, each of whom shares their skills and experience with dozens of young people in the communities. They are the drops that will one day become a big wave of positive change,” said Anna Yeghoyan, Armenian mentor of the EU4Youth Alumni Network.
The EU4Youth Alumni Network has been active since 2019. It is part of the overall EU4Youth programme, through which the EU is dedicated to developing youth leadership and entrepreneurship in the Eastern Partnership via a variety of actions, including capacity building, fellowships, support for policy dialogue, and providing grants to organisations active in these areas. The EU4Youth Alumni Network enables participants of European Union youth programmes to localise their knowledge and experience by implementing youth initiatives in their own communities.
During the ten-month programme, the Alumni work with a mentor, create and implement their own initiatives aimed at enhancing the skills of teenagers and young people from various communities, while also gaining new knowledge and experience themselves.
Multiplying effect
Over the past four years, Anna Yeghoyan has worked as a mentor with about 60 young people within the framework of the EU4Youth Alumni Network, helping them to implement educational initiatives in different communities of Armenia.
“Each year, we work with 10-15 Alumni, each of whom commits to involving at least 10 beneficiaries in their initiative. So we can say that during these years, the educational initiatives implemented by the alumni have reached 500 or more young people across Armenia,” said Anna Yeghoyan, adding that all the work is carried out voluntarily.
This year’s EU4Youth Alumni Network closing event took place in Moldova in early October, bringing together participants and mentors of the Eastern Partnership countries to summarise the results of the programmes they had implemented.
Applications for the new round are now open and will be accepted until October 30.
Initiatives based on real needs
According to Anna Yeghoyan, the primary criterion for applying to the programme is motivation. Once selected, participants attend an onboarding meeting where they present the target group they want to work with, and the mentor then helps them to develop their ideas.
“We do not expect participants to come with ready ideas, because those are often based only on their own perspectives and abilities, while the needs of the potential beneficiaries may be completely different,” Anna Yeghoyan explained.
She added that at first the Alumni are taught to identify and assess needs, and only then, based on that, do they finalise the concept of their initiative.
In each cycle, Alumni work mainly in pairs, sometimes individually, and occasionally in teams of three. In general, five to six initiatives are implemented per country during each cycle. They mainly involve educational initiatives for relatively disadvantaged, neglected or vulnerable groups. The initiatives cover areas such as career guidance, civic education, development of communication skills, etc.
The new wave of change in Vagharshapat
This year, EU4Youth Alumni Network participants Lilit Panosyan, Siuzanna Noroian and Hovhannes Yukinyan jointly implemented the ‘Next wave’ initiative in Vagharshapat community. Through this initiative, they worked with around 30 young people aged 14-18, providing civic education through a series of courses.
The initiative was implemented with the support of Etchmiadzin Youth House, where the lessons and discussions were held. During the initiative, which lasted from April to September 2024, the beneficiaries learned skills in local self-government, community development and applying for grant programmes through lectures and simulation games. Additionally, the Alumni helped beneficiaries with practical skills such as writing motivation letters, creating resumes, developing public speaking, etc.
The classes were conducted both by the Alumni and by invited lecturers.
“Alongside the mandatory courses, we also had a voluntary segment where we discussed various topics, including literary works. Interestingly, almost all the participants attended these non-mandatory discussions and actively engaged,” said Lilit Panosyan.
Empowering young people through practical work
Each Alumni can participate in the work of the EU4Youth Alumni Network twice. This was the second year of participation for 26-year-old Lilit Panosyan, so she sought to share her experience from the previous year with her teammates.
“There are many skills essential for youth work that are developed during the implementation of initiatives. Thanks to last year’s initiative, I developed communication, project management, and report writing skills. This year, thanks to my teammates, I acquired another very important skill: learning to share responsibility,” said Lilit Panosyan.
Twenty-three-year-old Siuzanna Noroian, who is participating in the programme for the first time this year, spoke enthusiastically about the opportunity to work with mentor Anna Yeghoyan and learn from her.
“When working with young people, you need to be very well prepared, have the appropriate skills, because the principle of ‘do no harm’ is paramount,” she said.
Siuzanna will apply for the programme this year as well, and if selected, hopes to implement an educational initiative in one of the communities in her native Shirak region. She noted that young people in many communities of the region seem to be isolated and are largely unaware of youth capacity development initiatives.
Apart from the practical skills acquired by the Alumni over the previous months, Anna Yeghoyan also emphasised the conscious change. “In my opinion, the biggest achievement of the programme for the EU4Youth Alumni is the realisation that their international experience should be localised and yield results in their homeland,” she said.
Encouraging results
For 23-year-old Hovhannes Yukinyan, witnessing the transformation of the participants of the initiative was particularly encouraging. Young people who had initially been passive, behaved in a completely different way at the final meeting.
“On the last day of the initiative, the beneficiaries demonstrated through their words and questions how much they have developed their public speaking skills and critical thinking over these months. Most of them have already applied to various programmes and are putting their new skills into practice,” said Hovhannes Yukinyan.
For Lilit Panosyan, the EU4Youth Alumni Network is of great importance, as it provided an opportunity to share the knowledge she gained while participating in various EU-funded youth programmes.
“I am very happy that I had the opportunity to make a small contribution to the development of the skills of the young generation. Working with young people has been very inspiring, as their bright ideas made me believe that they will build a great future,” she said.
The key role of the mentor
For youth mentor Anna Yeghoyan, her own success is the success of the Alumni. Throughout the programme, she is in constant contact with the teams, quickly reacts to emerging difficulties and guides towards solutions.
“Initiatives vary widely, from simple to very ambitious, depending on the abilities and experience of the Alumni. What matters most is that everyone implements an initiative that helps them to discover their own abilities and contribute to the development of their skills,” she stated.
Mentees must have clear experience and skills in working with especially vulnerable groups, otherwise their initiatives may harm instead of helping. The mentor has ongoing conversations with participants to make sure they are ready for the work.
“My role as a mentor is to ask such questions that help Alumni understand the seriousness of their intervention in the lives of the groups they work with and to approach it responsibly. We talk a lot with them about the appropriate motivation for working with these groups, and complexity of initiatives that can be implemented. Sometimes, participants come up with very ambitious ideas, so I help ground them in reality, and sometimes, on the contrary, they want to implement a very simple initiative, and in this case I try to raise the bar, because their learning process is a top priority for me,” said Anna Yegoyan.
Celebrating every success together
Mentor Anna Yeghoyan remembers a number of successful initiatives from previous years, placing particular emphasis on those where graduates return to their native communities to bring change there.
“One of my mentees, Karen Ghazaryan, implemented a professional orientation initiative in one of Spitak’s schools for two years. In the second year, he was joined by another Alumna, Madlen Minasyan, who enriched the initiative with her perspective. Interestingly, Karen graduated from that school, which had been quite neglected. It was really encouraging for me to see the beneficiaries of the initiative really deciding on their future profession,” the mentor recalled.
According to Anna Yeghoyan, the teams are very flexible during the implementation phase of the initiatives, due to unforeseen circumstances that may require changes. “Thanks to this flexibility, the outcomes are much richer than the Alumni originally planned,” she noted.
There were instances when it became apparent that the target group was not ready for the planned courses and still needed to acquire basic skills. “In such situations, graduates feel a bit sad that things are not going as they imagined. However, I explain to them the importance of those small steps, as without that, nothing can be built in the future,” the mentor explained.
For Anna Yeghoyan, visiting all the initiatives and witnessing the recorded results is very important. It is the most exciting part of her work, providing her with renewed motivation and energy as a mentor.
“Whenever I visit the communities and see young people gathered in a dilapidated building, listening carefully, eager to learn, sharing how their lives have changed through the initiatives and expressing ambitious aspirations, I am filled with great pride for the work done by my mentees,” said Anna Yeghoyan.
“On the other hand, I see how the Alumni transform during the programme, becoming more mature and aware of the impact of their actions on others. They all are very dedicated to youth work and are eager to bring positive change,” concluded Anna Yeghoyan.
Author: Gaiane Yenokian
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