New Platforms for Expression for NGOs

Yeghiazar Davtyan is fond of participating in trainings, particularly those on new media. As soon as he gets information about an opportunity to learn, he leaves his job of web developer at Martuni Women’s Community Council NGO and comes to Yerevan for training.

The second training on citizen journalism, attended by Yeghiazar, was organized by Internews within the framework of “Reaching the Audience: Building the Skills of Armenian Human Rights Defenders” project. From all group members he was the first to finish the practical assignments. However, Yeghiazar acknowledged that writing a blog story is more difficult than posting it in the Internet. Anyway, he hoped to overcome this challenge after the second course.

Now blog posts more often appear in Martuni Community Council NGO’s blog. Among its followers are at least two people who actively make comments – Artur Papyan and Gegham Vardanyan. They are the main trainers of Internews’ Blogging and Social Networks training course. No single post skips their attention.

Some of the blogs created during the training course became new platforms for expression for the participant NGOs. Thus, every day Goris Press Club has several new posts in its blog. New information, photos and videos also appear in the Gyumri based “Tsoline” NGO’s blog. Actually nothing goes on smoothly and instantly, but attempts continue.

During the coming months Internews will continue the series of training courses entitled “New Media for Human Rights Defenders: Skills and Tools.” The courses are aimed at providing human rights activists with theoretical and practical background on new media in order to create socially active resources in the Internet.