Since January 2024, Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO has launched the “Storytelling for LGBTQI+ Equality” project, implemented with the financial support of the Council of Europe, and the European Youth Foundation. The project was attended by 12 LGBTQI+ young activists, and coordinated by Milena Adamyan, an artist with experience in the field of comics, storytelling, and visual arts. At the start of the project, the activists participated in a three-day seminar on human rights and fundamental freedoms, which was conducted by Lilit Martirosyan, the founder and president of Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO. Then the second stage of the project began, during which the participants, with the help of the trainer, got acquainted with various techniques of visual art and storytelling, observed various works of contemporary art, and then with the selected techniques of visual art and storytelling methods, like interview, story and poem writing, comics, etc., started to develop stories that reflect the lived experience of LGBTIQ+ people in Armenia, as well as include examples of violations of their rights or struggles for equality.

During the meetings that took place in February and March, the participants finalized their stories and completed the preparation of visual materials, and now these stories have been summarized in a book, which will soon be published both in Armenian and English languages.

Right Side Human Rights Defender NGO gives great importance to the development of capacities of young Trans LGBIQ people so that they can engage in activism and protect their rights, contributing to the strengthening of the Trans LGBIQ movement in Armenia.

March 25, 2024 Armenia, Yerevan