86 percents would not tolerate

Most Armenians do not accept to have homosexual neighbors.
According to the Women’s Resource Center when the question ‘what would you do if your neighbor is homosexual?”was asked, 86% of the respondents answered that , they would not tolerate it. Anush Poghosian, the Centers for sexual and reproductive health issues states that a few years ago the intolerance towards homosexuality was 100%.
She continues to say: “It is normal that many of us have stereotypes. But can’t they change by reading, studying, and observing? It is encouraging that a small percentage of the population has become aware of people having the right to be as they are.”
The director of PINK Information Center, Mamikon Hovsapyan says lately, a great number of people asked him about homosexuality. According to him, the interest grew since December, when Armenia joined the United Nations statement for the protection of homosexuals. Hovsepyan states: “The basic confusion when discussing homosexuals is the belief that they are prostitutes wearing women's clothing and spreading sexually transmitted infections.” Hovsepyan wants to convince that on the exterior most homosexuals do not differ from other people. As for sexually transmitted infections, they are also spread by people who have non-homosexual orientation.
The coordinator of organization, Lilit Khorenyan believes that even the high officials of this country have erroneous ideas. When asked to give their views about homosexuality they respond by saying "It's a sickness. Go to Holland, it's the newest fashion there. We have entered the European Union and the newspapers are using homophobic phrases".
Mamikon Hovsepyan declares although there seems to be no apparent problems in Armenia, legal or otherwise, in regards to homosexuals, abuse and violence are current happenings especially during their military service. He also points out that is equally hurtful when the rights of individuals are invaded when their personal information, such as their names and photos, is made public, an event that occurred recently when a local paper printed an article about Armenian lesbians causing much commotion.

source: A1+

PINK Information Center

Dear friends,
Finally we open our Information Center, where people can visit us, use information materials from the library, participate in our trainings, group discussions, events and other activities.

"PINK Information Center"
40 Charents str, apt. 45
Yerevan, Armenia
tel. +374 10 55 69 46
working hours: 11am-19pm
Working days: Monday-Friday

We want to thank our friends for their support, as they helped us to find a good place for the office, day and night worked with us to establish this wonderful Center: Vahagn, Hovik, Vazgen, Kolya, Stephane, Nana, Marinka, Sergey from "New Generation" NGO, Grigor and "Women's Resource Center" NGO

Capacity Building for Armenia’s health sector

This August, in collaboration with the Yerevan Women’s Resource Center, Lory Hovsepian (Ph.D. candidate in Public Health, Université de Montréal) and Apraham Niziblian (Lobbying and advocacy specialist) will facilitate a three-day conference, supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) entitled: Capacity Building for Armenia’s health sector. This project will focus on developing community capacity in Armenia’s health sector, specifically regarding the promotion of sexual/reproductive health and the prevention of HIV/sexually transmitted infections in Armenia. Community organizations working in Armenia on these issues have been invited, with the hopes of knowledge transfer and capacity building, culminating in the creation of a collaborative effort to maximize effective promotion of key sexual health issues within the Armenian public.
In recent years, our experience with various civil society groups working in the Armenian health and social sectors has suggested that although there are many community organizations working either in the realm of sexual health or with vulnerable groups, these organizations often work independently and collaborative efforts on common projects are rare. Moreover, prior fieldwork and needs analysis have indicated need for common spaces where these organizations can come together, share experiences and expertise, learn from each other, all in a collaborative spirit. This situation has led us to believe that there is a need to create such a space and to facilitate concerted action in the area of sexual health. This common space will allow for needs analysis and knowledge transfer, following which it is our hope that the organizations present will pursue the steps, and that the process will culminate into the possible creation of a form of partnership – whether it be in the form of a consortium, coalition, or ‘table de concentration’ (the outcome, of course, will be left to the actors/stakeholders involved, reflecting their needs/interests in such collaborative efforts). Such collaborative efforts can only be beneficial to the attainment of the objectives set forth in the realm of sexual health in Armenia.

Invitation
Given our belief that it is through concerted, intersectoral and multi-level action that change can be brought forth, such a process cannot be successful without the inclusion and implication of all representatives of the health sector, including representatives of academic, health and governmental institutions. In this respect, we invite "PINK" NGO to participate in this conference. It is through the collaborative effort of organizations such as "PINK Armenia" that we can create the needed concerted effort in the Armenian health sector. In an effort to be as inclusive as possible, we would like to request your help in reaching out to other organizations that may be interested in participating in this conference.
The conference will consist of three half-day workshop sessions between August 12 and 15, 2008. The August 15 session will be followed by a networking event. During this event, representatives from various groups and institutions (e.g. Ministry of Health, health sector practitioners and researchers) will be invited to discuss possible venues of collaboration in the short and long term.

Youth, reality, perspectives

The Center for Organizing Youth Activities with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs organized a youth conference “Youth, reality, perspectives” aiming to activate and enlarge the Youth information field, and foster links between the youth NGO’s, as well as with the governmental and international organizations.
During the 3 days of the conference (25-27 June, 2008) an exhibition-fair “Idea Market” presented NGO’s of Armenia, Artsakh and Javakhk, and also those governmental and international organizations whose activities interact with the youth. The “Idea Market” helped about 90 organizations to present their history, activities, and plans. A special designated area and facilities were provided on request.PINK Armenia was one of those lucky organizations that presented the activities and future plans. The conference gave a good chance to find other partner organization to collaborate with. We are happy to collaborate also with government. As a first step we started our work with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs and it’s 10 Youth Centers in each region of Armenia.

Mr. Gay Europe

PINK Armenia is the official representative who will organize Mr. Gay Armenia every year and the winner will participate in Europian event.
Mr. Gay Europe celebrates the gay European man and pays tribute to the diversity as well as what we have in common as gay men in Europe. Gay men all over Europe and Eurasia are invited to take part in the festivity.
The Mr. Gay Europe Organization hereby invites to enter the Armenian Delegate in the Mr. Gay Europe Competition.
Read more about the rules and regulations and the Delegates

Winter Blitz News

21-27 January, 2008
Tbilisi, Georgia
Millenium Development Goals
Pink Armenia was invited to Georgia for MDG Conference. The meeting was organized by Georgian UN Association.

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20 January, 2008
Gyumri, Armenia
Expo 2008
Expo 2008 of local and international NGO's was organized in Gyumri, January 2008. PINK also took part in that event and presented the main projects.

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14 December, 2007
Yerevan, Armenia
PINK Armenia is officially registered
PINK members created the main project in September 2007 and started to collaborate with local and international organizations, organizing tranings, pesentations and events. Finally we were officially registered in December 2007,

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02 December, 2007
Gyumri, Armenia
Live talk-show about sexual minorities
Tsayg TV company organizaed a live talk show about the sexual minorities in the frame of the program "Tesankyun". The main guest of that show was the president of PINK Armenia NGO. The program was broadcasted in Shirak Region.