Women in Black: One year of Struggle and Achievements in Armenia
It has been almost a year since SWV decided to give a start to Women in Black Movement in Armenia. It was a year of hard collective work with young enthusiastic girls and women from all over Armenia as a result of which the development of Women in Black movement was made possible. Many civic forums aimed at raising the awareness on WiB movement, as well as peace, types of conflicts, conflict resolution ways and the role of women in the above-mentioned processes were organized almost in all regions of Armenia thus creating a network of young people who are aware of Women in Black movement, its values, ways of struggle and many other important things.
To sum up all the efforts undertaken SWV invited the most active participants of civic forums in regions to Yerevan giving them a chance to start a direct face to face communication and share their personal experiences of Women in Black street actions organized in respective regions. During the two days of active discussions, working sessions and fun, the participants shared with each other many details about the actions they had organized in frames of Women in Black. They reevaluated the success of the street action, highlighted the strong and weak points and learned lesson for the future. After the first day the strong bond between the participants from different regions was the prerequisite for a successful collaborative work for the next day.
Sasha Kovacevic, the representative of Women in Black Serbia was there to share her knowledge on WiB international, its activities, values, ethical basics, methods of struggle and her personal experience of being a Woman in Black. As a real Woman in Black Sasha was able to touch the souls of the young participants and make them believe on what they were doing. With the power and enthusiasm parallel with the knowledge they gained, the participants outline the WiB Armenia structure-its vision, mission, objectives as well as activities for the upcoming 2 years. This was a massive task to cover, but their motivation and enthusiasm was enough to handle it.
Currently, the young girls and women from the regions of Armenia have a promising list of activities for the upcoming two years and will spare no effort to strengthen the bond between different WiB groups in Armenia and fulfill the tasks envisaged by the developed agenda.
