Active young people have a supernatural power to develop the community and bring positive change. Young people should be given the opportunity to communicate with each other, get acquainted with new ideas and express their own thoughts and opinions. Thus, on July 4-16, 2021 a training course on Life Skills was held in Berd, organized by the FYN team.
When I first learnt about the event, the topics seemed familiar to me. I’ve already passed a course on this topic and was familiar with the content. I decided to take the initiative and to be involved in the course by sharing my experience and knowledge. The team kindly agreed and we settled that I will conduct a piece of the course as well”.
On the first day of the meeting, more than 20 young people aged between 14-17 gathered from Paravakar, Tavush, Karmir Aghbyur, Navur, Aygedzor and Berd. On the last day of the meetings, the number of participants was already 30. At first we got acquainted with each other, agreed on the communication rules and learning methods, we were provided with manuals. We made the course more interesting by including games and exercises.
As life skills include topics about self-knowledge and self-analysis, which can be very personal, participants were free to express or write down their thoughts. Stepping ahead, I will say that in the following meetings the young people shared their personal stories and ideas which gave an opportunity to think and analyze some episodes of their lives.
The meetings included 16 topics, which were divided into 3 parts: self-knowledge, interpersonal relationships and soft skills. I conducted two courses on “emotional consciousness” and “positive thinking”. I chose the topics of the course because they were closer to my heart. This was my first attempt to conduct a course. At first I was a little tense, however, the active participation of the youth, their discussions and positive responses made us even closer. I realized that we have similar emotional vibes. It was significant to talk about positive thinking, because young people at our age have a lot of stereotypes, there are a lot of negative thinkings, and there is a need to “break stereotypes” and change negative thoughts into positive ones. In the process, I shared my personal experience, and the participants, in turn, brought episodes from their lives, and all this made the meeting much more emotional and personal.
Finally, working with my senior colleagues of FYN, I had the opportunity to learn a lot from them and take their positive experience. I feel stronger after working with the team and ready to be more active and proactive.
I think courses and meetings on such topics should be organized much more, because young people all have problems that are similar and different at the same time. We – young people – often keep these problems inside us, not having the opportunity to work on solving problems or difficulties, no matter how much you talk about this, there is so much to share.
Written by Alina Abrahamyan
Translated by Liana Habeshyan
Edited by Mariam Avetisyan
