Garik was having a huge success in professional wrestling, when the 2020 war ruined all his future plans. Garik was injured and his career as a sportsman became a past. But as he mentioned during the interview, a person should never give up.
"During the project time I understood that we should never give up, blame others, we are the owners of our life, we should be ambitious, set the goal, work hard and everything is possible", says Garik giving a piece of jewelry to the organizers, that he prepared based on the knew knowledge gained during the training course,"We saw a great desire to help us, that we haven’t ever seen after the war. It gave me a great power to move forward".
Garik has successfully completed the classes on jewelry stone setting and hopes that it will help him to find a job in the market. Alongside with the new knowledge, he is a successful 2nd grade student of the Armenian State Institute օf Physical Culture and Sport, and due to his great progress, he will study for free in the upcoming year.
Garik is one of the 20 young people from Armavir region that got injured during the 2020 war and within the framework of the Project got the opportunity to gain new skills that will help them to live a life from a new stage.
"Armavir has the biggest number of injured servicemen as a result of 2020 war and that became the main reason that we decided to implement the project in that region. After the needs assessment the main activities were designed that offered psychological support as well support on professional orientation, development of skills via various courses and provision of necessary equipment to realize the new gained skills", says Anna Barfyan, Youth Programme Analyst, UNFPA Armenia.
"I am very happy to state that the program has fully achieved its goal and the results are tangible and satisfying. I would also like to say thank you our partners and the entire program team, who worked very hard to make the program an effective one", said Mariam Gharagyozyan, the programme manager of Gyumri - Youth Initiative Centre NGO.
"Here I feel the team spirit, it is the first time, after the war injury, that I realized that I can do some work", says Aharon.
Within the framework of the Project Aharon and Hayk gained skills on business projects design and decided to make their own dry fruits business. Thanks to the project, the young people also got the dry fruit machines.
"We have a big garden where plums, peaches, and apricots grow. This year I tried to make dry fruits from peaches and watermelon and the result was great. I have already planned a larger production next year", says Aharon.
"We can also make dry vegetables from eggplants and tomatoes,"says Hayk and adds, "this was my best year after 2020, I am making future plans for my business, maybe we can join our efforts with Aaron to have a bigger production".
"I can also make tattoos, and when this opportunity arose, I decided to learn hairdressing as well. Now I can mainly do men's haircut, and also gained some knowledge and skills on hair dyeing: getting the right tone and color," says Sedrak and encouraged this initiative. "We feel valued and this initiative was a spark of life that helped me to move forward".
Yenok learned social media management within the framework off the project.
“I also graduated from the PanArmenia Media school receiving the qualification of an anchor. But as there are no regional media outlets in Armavir, and Yerevan is too far, I hope that the new knowledge will help me to work remotely, run social media pages and have a job”, said Yenok.
Accounting, English language, IT, jewelry, hairdressing, photography, social media management, dry fruits production, agriculture ... these are the fields that the participants got acquainted with, acquired new knowledge and skills within the framework of the Social-psychological support for young war veterans that have been injured or got disability." program. The participants received also psychological support from Anush Aleksanyan, the director of "Yerkusov" psychological center.
The Project is implemented by UNFPA in partnership with Gyumri - Youth Initiative Centre NGO.
