What can be more pleasant than seeing the fruits of hard work?!

On November 23-26, YMCA Europe Staff and partners from the American University of Armenia, YMCA Sweden, and YMCA Georgia came together in Yerevan, Armenia with the main aim to evaluate the current phase of the YMCA Europe Generation Next project and to elaborate the future action plans.

 

 

Despite the agenda being only two days long, the discussions were deep and comprehensive, resulting in a detailed and constructive evaluation. In each working session, the project staff, the implementation team and scholarship holders sat together, having the opportunity to express their views about carried out activities and to share about approaches and methodologies used – as well as about the future plans, because the project is not only done for young people, but together with them, with careful consideration of their voice and their needs.

 

 

Active dialogues were held about future partnerships and diversifying the program by including a cross-country collaboration element, which will help project students to enrich their experience and learn about work in different contexts and circumstances outside their community.

 

 

Furthermore, during the working meeting at the American University of Armenia, current scholarship holders from Georgia and Armenia shared their feedback and spoke about highlights and challenges encountered while participating in different activities. As it was identified, Georgian and Armenian students’ experiences varied as the internships they were engaged in were different, however, their development, growth and impact stories were very similar and the absolute majority of them expressed deep gratitude and pleasure to be involved in the project.

 

 

Finally, after two engaging and positively challenging days, the working group attended the Aram Khachaturian 11th International Festival, featuring violinist Stella Chen and the Armenian State Symphonic Orchestra. It does not even need to be mentioned that the working meeting was not only about gathering data for reports but to create a team which will be making an exceptional contribution to the community for the years to come under the name Generation Next.

Learn more about Armenian and Georgian best practices and success stories from the current phase of Generation Next here:

• BEFORE GENERATION NEXT EVALUATION WORKSHOP KICKS OFF
• GENERATION NEXT “SUMMER SCHOOL” IN GEORGIA
• EMBROIDERY SUMMER SCHOOL IN ARMENIA
  

We wish good luck to all current or former beneficiaries of the project in their endeavours.

In a couple of days YMCA Europe staff and representatives of partner organisations and universities will ensemble in Yerevan, Armenia, to evaluate the current phase of the Generation Next project.
This YMCA Europe large-scale and long-term initiative, with core funding from BfdW Germany, was launched back in 2020 – just before Covid and wars would lockdown then tear apart the humanity.

Notwithstanding unprecedented force majors the project stayed resilient and agile, impacting lives of young people in Armenia and Georgia through opening up their life skills and
empowering them for civic engagement.

Here are a couple of Generation Next impact stories published by the American University of Armenia, one of the project partner academic institutions.
1. Grigor Shahbazyan’s Unforgettable Experience Through YMCA Scholarship
2. Reflecting on Impactful Training Experience Through YMCA

More impact stories will be communicated during the Workshop, but also lessons learnt – as the Generation Next is going into the second phase of its implementation for the period of 2024– 2027.

The cooperation between YMCA Georgia and the State University of Sport within the framework of YMCA Europe “Generation Next” Project successfully continued in 2023. “Aspire, Activate, Achieve” brought together 26 students and 5 lecturers at YMCA Georgia “Camp Orange” on September 03-09, 2023 – aiming to prepare, endorse and sustain the pool of qualified and motivated young sports teachers/leaders from different regions of Georgia that will act as promoters of the healthy lifestyle, attract larger number of citizens, especially children and youth to sports and recreational programs and eventually contribute towards safer and more progressive society.

The program included a variety of indoor and activities, both theoretical and practical – employing non-formal and academic teaching methodologies to deliver relevant and up-to-date content, namely:

• GROW (Goals, Reality, Options and Way Forward) Coaching;
• Sports Psychology;
• Communication Skills;
• Nutritionology;
• Sports Pedagogy;
• Effective Planning;
• Community Mobilisation.

The elements of the program and the respective facilitators were deliberately mixed to strike a balance between non-formal and academic subjects that were essential to meet the project goals and to provide holistic learning opportunities to the participants.

As a follow-up, YMCA Georgia plans to maintain cooperation with project beneficiaries and implement joint activities for different communities across Georgia.

On September 12, at the premises of and in cooperation with the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, the closing session of the YMCA Europe Generation Next Embroidery Summer School was held. The masters and the graduates of the Summer School were greeted by the YMCA Europe Executive Secretary – Vardan Hambardzumyan, and the Director of the Genocide Museum-Institute – Dr. Harutyun Marutyan, followed by a lecture on the History of the Armenian Embroidery delivered by one of the best academicians in the field – Karine Bazeyan.

All the speakers especially highlighted the importance of passing the embroidery skills from generation to generation.

An exhibition was organized displaying the handcrafts created by the participants. Moreover, each of them was wearing a “YMCA Europe Generation Next” t-shirt with an embroidery application individually added by each participant and master, thus making the atmosphere of the ceremony eloquently special.

The graduation certificates were handed over by the five Syrian-Armenian masters, who conducted the training through the summer. Then the participants had a guided excursion in the Genocide Museum, visited and put flowers to the Genocide Memorial and watered the YMCA tree in the Memorial Park.

The event was covered by number of mainstream media, including:

The National Television of Armenia.

HayernAysor.