“UPSHIFT” In the Gavar with the participation of Maléna, who won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest (photo report)

In the building of the State Drama Theater named after Levon Kalantar in Gavar was summed up the results of the community involvement program in the development of adolescents “UPSHIFT Gavar”

Recall that the purpose of this most important world program is to develop the abilities of young men and young people aged 12 to 18 years, familiarize them with the skills of the 21st century, involve them in community life, activate, turn their ideas into business so that they can change community life, make it attractive, prosperous.

This program, implemented in many countries of the world, was introduced in Armenia three years ago, in 2019, by the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF and the Gyumri public organization “Center for Youth Initiatives”. It is carried out with the support of the European Union.

In Gavar, the program started with an exhibition. It began in December 2021, and teenagers from neighboring communities also participated in it

Unlike other cities of Gyumri, Spitak and Ijevan, 10 programs were funded in Gavar, 5 of which were implemented by the municipality and individuals. They were mainly environmental, tourist, as well as agricultural, concerning innovative technologies. One of the teams turned the territory polluted by residents into a pasture into a park, the other founded a greenhouse. One of the teams created an automatic system of calls in schools, cooperating with the engineering laboratory “Armat”.

“The bell doesn’t sound too early, it doesn’t sound too late, it sounds just in time,” the young inventors from upshift presented. The system they created was installed in six schools in the province.

Another team cleaned up the environment, collected plastic bottles, made jewelry and put them up for sale.

UNICEF representative in Armenia Kristine Vaigand said in her speech: “I know that the past weeks have been difficult, especially in this area, I want to thank all those young people who have faithfully and purposefully completed their programs. This “UPSHIFT” is one of the most interesting and special. Unlike other communities, here we see the work of 10 teams, in others there were 5, and this is thanks to the efforts of the community and others who contributed to the formation of five other works.”

Responsible for international assistance/Cooperation of the delegation of the European Union to Armenia Bruno Montarioli, who represented the EU Ambassador Andrea Vikorin, since he is in Europe, joked that he feels like a movie star in the presence of other movie stars in the person of Maléna, who won the Eurovision Song Contest. He also said that he feels quite young in UPSHIFT because he gets a lot of energy from young people.

Artur Najarian, Chairman of the Council of the Gyumri Youth Initiatives Center public organization, noted that UPSHIFT has become a program that implements changes in various communities.

“I have to be sincere, we have implemented UPSHIFT in different communities, but when we discussed the need to implement it in Gavar, different colleagues said that you don’t have a case, Gavar is a very complex community, people are very complex, and young people there are indifferent to everything. They don’t like their community, they don’t like to take any action.

I stated today that this is an absolute lie, we, working, recorded one important fact in Gavar: we saw a community that is too loving, too loving the motherland, which attaches great importance to its role in the development of the community to young men and young people. They just needed the opportunity to dream and make those dreams come true, and UPSHIFT has become such an opportunity.”

Maléna, who this year brought the Junior Eurovision Song contest to Armenia, who, according to the tradition of UPSHIFT, was a special guest, came on stage and said: “I followed all the programs with interest, and I am so glad that my generations are so purposeful and initiative.

I hope that in the future we will be able to do great things for our country.”

She sang a short excerpt from her Eurovision song.

Find here the original article: https://www.aravot.am/2022/10/17/1298481/