On 31 March-1 April the Civil Society Institute (CSI) held its Pre-Election Games Inter-Communal Youth Meeting in the winter resort town of Tsakhadzor. Attended by representatives of most of the main political parties and NGOs working on election-related projects, the two day event was a first attempt to encourage discussion and debate among youth regarding the coming election.

Not only did Oneworld Multimedia attend the first day of the event, but it also interviewed one of the events organizers, CSI’s Youth Program Coordinator, Tamar Palandjian, afterwards. For those of you that don’t know, Palandjian is an American-Armenian who has been living and working in Armenia since August 2005. She also has a blog at http://armyouth.blogspot.com.

ONNIK KRIKORIAN: What did you hope the weekend would achieve?

TAMAR PALANDJIAN: The event was to introduce and inform young people from Yerevan and the regions as to the different programs undertaken by the NGO sector as well as by political parties in the hope that they might somehow get involved. In general, it was to promote the involvement of youth in election-related programs and to help them become familiar with the issues on the agenda of many of these political parties. It was just a very introductory weekend towards that.

OK: How do you think the weekend went?

TP: When I hear that question I immediately think of all the good things that happened, and so I would say that it went well overall. It’s an initial step and there are still many things that need to be done. You can only do so much, especially with events like this. However, the more young people become involved with such activities the better. There were many people who had never attended such an event before, so for them this was something new and completely different. Their reaction was positive so I would consider mine to reflect theirs.

OK: I was surprised to see so many representatives from the political parties attend. Did that surprise you?

TP: No, it didn’t surprise me as I think it is in their interest to get young people involved. What surprised me, however, was the reaction of the “non-political” youth as well as the nature of the political party market that we held on Saturday and the amount of discussion which occurred as a result. Overall, youth approached the political parties and were serious in asking about their platforms. I thought that was wonderful and that was of course our intention.

However, I was rather disappointed with the reaction of youth to the presentations made by the NGOs. I was hoping they would be more positive to information about certain programs such as election observation and monitoring, but from what I could see the opposite happened. On Sunday, Suren Saghatalyan from It’s Your Choice gave a very interesting presentation on election observation, and afterwards I asked the youth for their opinion, but they responded by saying that they didn’t believe in it or thought that it wouldn’t work.

During that presentation there was mention of exit polls, but again everyone was very skeptical about them working. Unfortunately, this is starting to confirm something that I’ve been hearing about a lot recently. That is, it is possible to “politicize” youth to the extent that they get involved with political parties, but don’t understand their rights and obligations as citizens in general. They don’t seem to be interested in non-politicized activities [related to democratization].

OK: Maybe they don’t believe in such ideas because they believe the outcome of elections is decided beforehand. They don’t believe anything will change.

TP: There’s that, but I also think that this is a result of the fact that civic education is not as developed as it should be here, and especially at a younger age. For example, young people learn how to become citizens as well as about their local and national governments at much a much younger age in the West.

OK: You’ve been in Armenia since August 2005 when you arrived here as a visiting Fulbright Scholar. Compared to when you arrived, have you seen any positive changes, however small, with regards to youth participation in the development of the country?

TP: Yes, I would say that there are positive developments with regards to volunteerism and working with NGOs. I hope that can develop more in the sense that youth will continue to become involved with the activities of civil society, and in the NGO sector specifically, because that’s where civic education is developing. They’re slowly becoming aware of the various events and activities they can participate in.

Activists who are involved with the NGO sector are becoming quite active and responsible citizens, and volunteerism within that realm is increasing.

OK: Is there anything you’d like to add?

TP: Yes. Unfortunately, inter-community youth events like this do not happen very often in Armenia, and very many youth from Yerevan end up going abroad for trainings and programs. They come back to Armenia very motivated and eager to do something, but they stay concentrated in Yerevan. What needs to happen is that events and programs that bring young people from the regions together need to continue. This is where future youth programs should be heading towards.

Almost everybody is just working with Yerevan, including regional communities. Youth from Dilijan are working with Yerevan, for example, but not with young people in Chambarak.

Pre-Election Games, Tsaghadzor, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007