Participants of the Gavar CSO Incubator discussed Issues Related to Secondary Vocational Education

On 4 July, training on education issues for CSOs participants of the Gavar CSO incubator was held within the framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project (Education is one of the 9 target sectors of the project).

There was great interest in this sector. All CSO representatives mentioned the importance and development of the sector. Mr. Vigen Shirvanyan, Expert of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project partner “Armenian Centre for Democratic Education-CIVITAS” NGO, presented a number of peculiarities related to education with respect to secondary vocational education.

On the same day, another training for the group was held in Gavar CSO incubators. Mr. Marat Atovmyan, Mentors’ Group Coordinator/Justice and Related Sectors Mentor of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project, facilitated the training. Mr. Atovmyan talked about the issues of modernization of secondary vocational education and training; he also referred to the experience of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association on public oversight, public policy development, development of constructive dialogue with the government and coalition building. CSO representatives asked a number of questions and presented examples of best practices.

9 CSO representatives participated in the trainings.

Upon completion of the training, Marat Atovmyan and Project Lawyer Ms Liana Makvetsyan provided individual counseling to CSO representatives based on the specificities that the CSOs had chosen. An agreement was reached to send CSO representatives a copy of documents that they could use during their day-to-day activities.

The “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” action is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by a Consortium of civil society organizations, which are “Armenian Lawyers’ Association”, Agora Central Europe o.p.s (an NGO from the Czech Republic), Armenian Center for Democratic Education-CIVITAS, “International Center for Human Development” Public Organization, SME Cooperation Association and Union of Communities of Armenia.

The overall objective of the project is to enhance the influence of CSOs on the public policy process, and the specific objectives are to strengthen the ability of CSOs to build coalitions and focus on constructive and strategic policy engagement with local and central government partners. This will enable organizations (which already work in targeted coalitions) to acquire new resources, to join and encourage the civil society experts to engage in and encourage their participation in the formation of the local and national policies agenda; to identify common issues and priorities; and to address the government with constructive and strategic policy initiatives.

The project has a sub-granting component, under which grants will be provided to CSOs and CSOs Coalitions, which will be directed to the development of public policies and will have tangible results in 9 target areas, including justice, education and business.