“Women Unite For Peace” peacebuilding flashmob
In December 3, 2015 the members of “Women in Black”, Armenian initiative, together with “Society Without Violence” NGO as an annual tradition organised “Women, unite for peace” public event which was accompanied by a peacebuilding dance flash mob. The event took place in the central corpus of Yerevan State University. Despite the cold and snowy weather members of the initiative danced the flash mob several times which was inspiring and by that inspiration they shared the peacebuilding ideology. By that way members expressed their endurance to overcome the difficulties while distributing the ideology. By the way the event was held in the frames of 16-Days of Activism to stop gender based violence.
As always a list of issues were highlighted during the event: the importance of women’s involvement in decision-making processes, women’s participation in peacebuilding formal and informal negotiations, as well as in the processes of creating mechanisms for conflict transformation. For that purpose there were informative booklets, leaflets, postcards highlighted with the peacebuilding essence of the initiative and they were given to the passers-by, students and other interested people. There were also posters presenting the strategies to overcome conflicts.
One of the members of “Women in Black”, Armenian initiative, Arusik said in one of her interviews: “Flash mobs are active and inspiring way to spread and express your ideology. So we danced, got inspired and involved others also. We shared our peace ideology with people. We tried to show the importance of women’s involvement in peacebuilding and conflict resolution processes and the need of awareness raising”.
It’s important to mention also the fact that some of the dancers were not the members and supporters of “Women in Black”, Armenian initiative but girls who were interested in the ideology and the event.
You can see the photos of the flash mob here and enjoy the video here.
Arpy Balyan
“Women in Black”. Armenian Initiative
