Human Rights Defenders initiate young people’s involvement in peacebuilding

28 young people from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Karabakh spent the first 4 days of October together, discussing the necessity of peace in their countries.

HCA Vanadzor, whose one of the strategies is peacebuilding, undertook formation of a brigade of young peace-builders with partners from its neighbouring countries.
  On October1-4, 2008 future peace-builders met in a neutral country, in Georgia, Tbilisi, considering that talking about peace, negotiating in their own countries impossible for the time being.
  The coordinator of HCA Vanadzor Arthur Sakunts says,-“ The negotiation process directed towards peace during the last years could not change the enemy image into opposing party among the societies in Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
Therefore, through involvement of young people in the process of peacebuilding it will become possible to inculcate mutual trust and tolerance among the societies of both countries.
  During the three-day discussions the youngsters got acquainted with the consequences of the Karabakh conflict, with the impact of the unsolved conflict on social-economic, political and other spheres in general.
  A political scientist assessed the economic situation in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Karabakh, considering that the solution of the conflict and development of relations is of urgent importance.
  Stepan Grigorian, the chairman of the Analytical Center on Globalization and Regional Cooperation, political scientist, presented the direct and indirect consequences of the Karabakh conflict pointing out its widespread impact on all parties - victims, POWs, hostages, missing persons and refugees.
  The Armenian-Azerbaijani war equally influenced both parties hindering the development of these two countries.
While the political figures are deciding how to solve this antagonism, the young peacebuilders decided to study the victims of the conflict in their countries, to reveal their problems and once again to urge the governments and international organizations about the unsolved Armenian-Karabakh conflict and its affects on these two Caucasian nations.
  The young peace-builders were also familiarized with the problems of the conflict victims through films presented by the producer of the website www.echanel.am, Gegham Vardanyan.
  The head of Society of Humanitarian Research, Avaz Hasanov, presented the young peacebuilders with the mechanisms of revealing the problems of the “alive victims” of the conflict - refugees, relatives of missing persons, former prisoners of war and ways of protecting them.
  The future peace-builders will meet once more to outline their further activity.
  The project “Formation of Young Peace-builders’ Brigade” is being implemented by the support of the Embassy of Great Britain in Armenia.