HCA Vanadzor Helsinki Citizens' Assembly - Vanadzor

HCA-Vanadzor
Tigran Mets 59
Vanadzor
Armenia

+374 32242268
+374 32220866
hcavHiddenText@hcav.am
www.hcav.am

At present, 10 young people are involved in the activities of our organization. For them and with them our organization realized and realizes programs directed towards developing their potential in the spheres of human rights protection and peace-building. As a rule young people are involved as a result of our work with them in different directions of our activity. Many young participants of seminars and working discussions organized by us became our partners in their locations.

HCA Vanadzor is a non political, non religious, non profit NGO which unites individuals who admit the supremacy principles of democracy, tolerance, pluralism and human rights as values. The mission of HCA Vanadzor is the promotion and support for civil initiatives, strengthening right protective and peace building activities on local, national and regional levels. The vision of HCA Vanadzor is to form a society where supreme values of human rights, democracy and peace are respected.

The thematic focus of HCA Vanadzor covers human rights protection, support for civil initiatives and peace-building both on local and regional (South Caucasus) levels. Within the framework of these three areas we implement the following projects and activities.

Human rights protection

The goal of this direction is the provision of human rights protection in Northern Armenia through legislative improvements, contribution of effective mechanisms of restoring violated rights, provision of access to administrative justice in Lori region.

Promotion and Support for Civil initiatives

The goal of this direction is the increasing of the role of civil participation in the solution of community problems. During 2006-2010 the support center of civil initiatives aims to increase the role of civil participation in Northern Armenia during electoral processes (2007 and 2011-parliamentary, 2008 – presidential elections, 2008 and 2011 – elections of self-governmental bodies), to raise the role of citizens in budgeting, adoption and realization of the budget of Vanadzor (overcoming corruption on local level), to form and contribute mechanisms of protecting the interests of vulnerable social groups of Vanadzor (residents of temporary dwellings, people getting allowances, pensioners), to raise civil participation in the work out of changes of the law “On Local Referendum”, to form culture of tolerance in Northern Armenia (interchurch, political, racial) and to provide civil participation in the process of solving environmental problems.

Peace building

The goal of the peace building direction is the strengthening of civil potential of peace building movement through defending the rights and interests of those who suffered from the conflicts of South Caucasus, through forming atmosphere of trust and developing regional cooperation between South Caucasus countries.

Biggest successes

• In 2006, HCA Vanadzor initiated restoration of the Azeri graveyards of “Nor Khachakap” village in Armenia, which was in the focus of attention in Armenia and Azerbaijan. This was a step towards overcoming the enemy image that the Azeri had towards Armenians for many years.
• Again, in the sphere of peace-building we can consider a great achievement the visit of 10 young people to Armenia, which was for the first time after the Armenian–Azeri conflict. This was also paid attention in both countries.
• One of the most important achievements was the meetings with PACE reporter Leo Platvoet. It resulted in considering the recommendations of the Council of Europe by the Armenian government regarding improvements of the national legislation on missing persons problems. This was due to the international lobbying.
• One of the achievements of 2006 was the organization of “South Caucasus Human Rights School” in Armenia, where there were participants from all the conflict zones of South Caucasus and publication of a joint report of the results of human rights monitoring conducted by them
• In 2006, we succeeded in forming dialogue between a number of religious organizations aiming to involve them in public processes. This is a success as there is lack of tolerance towards non-apostolic religious organizations.
• One of the latest achievements was the observation mission during the parliamentary elections. Due to our observations, we were able to prevent many violations resisting the systematized use of administrative resources.