"There are only 28 days in February!" Katarina Vardanyan, head
of the Armenian Red Cross Youth Department, brings breaking
news, and the mood in the office gets more tense. This piece
of information meant that the first ever Eurasian Red Cross Red
Crescent youth network meeting was only one week away, not ten
days.
But there was no problem. The preparations had started months
ahead, and we were ready. Many institutions had been contacted
for support; we had transportation, translators, equipment,
facilitators, souvenirs, rooms, food, sightseeing plans…
Everything was in order, except the participation. In the end,
representatives from only four of the twelve National Societies
in the region, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, in addition
to a Russian NGO, participated in the first Eurasian Network
Meeting in Yerevan, Armenia in the beginning of March.
Together we can
The motto for the meeting was together we can, and this was
also the main idea behind the initiative, which followed the
European Cooperation Meeting (ECM) in Vienna last year. But
to do work together one needs to meet, and this seemed to be
the challenge. The importance of the meeting was unfortunately
not enough to overcome the economical and practical challenges
related to the participating in the meeting, including problems
with travel documents, cancelled flights etc.
Busy days
The nine participants who spent the first days of March in Yerevan
were in for long and busy days. The schedule was filled with
seminars, workshops and sharing of experiences, as well as several
trips to explore Armenian culture. Important topics included
cooperation, communication, youth structures, working with the
communities, fundraising and project planning. In the evenings
there was entertainment of various sorts, even including a birthday
party. The youth were enjoying their time together, and shared
a lot of information both in formal and informal settings.
There were some serious objectives to be met during the three
days. Following this meeting an outline for a future strategy
for cooperation should be made and a network logo and name approved.
How to meet up?
Emma Khachatryan (22), Armenian Youth Delegate in Norway, returned
to Armenia to help organizing and facilitating the network meeting
because of her experience as an European Coordinating Committee
member and her participation in the ECM in Vienna last year.
- Normally when people have these kinds of meetings, there is
just a lot of talk and nothing happens, but this time we have
several plans to visit, share experiences and participate in
trainings together. For example, this summer there will be a
youth camp in Central Asia, Emma explains eagerly.
- Of course we were disappointed that not more participants
came, but this was also something we had discussed, she continues.
- We were aware that there would be some travel and financial
challenges, but late information and cooperation problems made
it harder than expected to organize the meeting, Emma says.
As an experienced Red Cross volunteer, Emma points further to
the fact that the youth structures in some National Societies
are lacking. This, combined with economic challenges, will necessarily
make it hard to send young participants to meetings abroad when
priorities have to be made nationally.
- It’s not automatically the choice of the respective
National Societies, but a result of various factors, Emma concludes.
What next?
However, this will not be the last meeting of the network. The
contact and cooperation will continue, and hopefully expand.
Even the countries which did not send their participants have
given response to various parts of the process, and the hope
is that more will get involved with time.
- Now that we have some experience in arranging this kind of
meeting, we hope other countries will want to contact us if
they need this kind of skills, for example. All the National
Societies are good in one field or the other, and one of the
points with the network is to share this expertise, Emma smiles.
It was the first meeting of its sort in this part of the world,
and some challenges were to be expected. Emma tries to explain:
- There is something that makes our countries sceptical to initiating
something themselves, but also to following the good example
of others. Cooperation is difficult for us, she says, but adds
smiling:
- Maybe because we don’t know how yet?
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| Nine
youth from four National Societies met for the first Eurasian
youth network meeting
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| Communication
was one focus of the meeting.
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| Serious
topics such as a future strategy, network name and logo
were discussed. |
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Moldovan
girls with their certificates of participation.
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