Since January 2024, Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO has launched the “Storytelling for LGBTQI+ Equality” project, which is implemented with the financial support of the Council of Europe, and the European Youth Foundation. 12 Trans LGBQI+ young activists participate in the program, coordinated by Milena Adamyan, an artist with experience in the field of comics, stories, and visual arts, who helps the participants find their unique voices and easily express their ideas.
In the first part of the project, during the meetings held on January 20-23, 2024, LGBTQI+ activists participated in training on the necessary knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and also on storytelling skills, which covered the following topics:
As a result of the “Storytelling for LGBTQI+ Equality” training, the participants received comprehensive knowledge about mechanisms of human rights protection and promotion of human rights through storytelling, engaged in question-and-answer, as well as gained an idea of what to do next through practical tasks.
At the end of the training, Lilit Martirosyan, the founder and president of Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO, and Milena Adamyan, the expert of the training, gave certificates to all the participants and welcomed their active involvement during the entire course.
The training has been followed by the second stage of the project, during which the participants have already started to develop stories that reflect the life experience of LGBTQI+ people in Armenia and also include examples of violations of rights or struggles for equality, using the appropriate techniques of visual art and storytelling methods chosen by them: interview, short story, poem, comic, etc. The materials created by the participants will be summarized in a book that will present the unique life experience of LGBTQI+ people in Armenia. Each week, the participants hold meetings to develop the idea for the development of the book, as well as conduct additional workshops to prepare various visual materials that will also be included in the book.
Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO gives great importance to the capacity building of young LGBTQI+ people so that they can engage in activism and protect their interests, contributing to the strengthening of the LGBTQI+ movement in Armenia.
Febuary 16, 2024 Armenia Yerevan
