"Uniting Bridge" social non-governmental organization

Uniting Bridge SNGO promotes non-formal education, communications development, cultural diversity, community development, youth inclusion in the society, the inclusion of the vulnerable groups in the society, critical thinking, and non-formal education and rural development. Most importantly Uniting Bridge is continuing to build bridges between young people with fewer opportunities and various interesting projects or programs. The organization is based on the initiative called "Come to Oshakan'', which was founded in 2014. After the initiative, we understood that Oshakan is a magnificent village that the young people from Armenia and all over the world can benefit from. That is why, the coordinator, who is also a co-founder of the NGO made a decision to make Oshakan visible to the world, and let others help themselves from the village's advantages- like nature, rural harmonic atmosphere, and harvest of the year. Therefore, it is important to indicate that one of the essential missions for the organization is to develop rural development and implement environmental thinking in rural communities. We have visions of having empowered youth in communities who are an active part of society. Social-economical barriers should not disturb the person to be included in society. This is a huge problem that we face nowadays. In the Aragatsotn region, there is an issue of inclusion for youth, and we strive to give them new opportunities to get empowered and show their creativity. Our target group is the youth from various Armenian regions, 14-30 years old. Yes! That is right. We will not only create opportunities for young people from Aragatsotn, but our projects, seminars, programs, discussions, and internship opportunities are available for everyone from Armenia and abroad- for the ones who would like to work with us in the online format. The organization promotes youth participation in local decision-making and equal inclusion for all youngsters. Uniting Bridge gives massive importance to youth inclusion and does many projects on youth inclusion. Our organization puts a lot of importance into Non-formal education and strives to give new opportunities to the young people from the regions. Those youngsters have fewer opportunities in the Aragatsotn region, and because of strong stereotypes, they are not included in many spheres. When we conducted a survey, we noted that young people’s inclusion is low because they believe in various useless stereotypes like- being from a village, being not educated enough, or not having the motivation and financial support to develop themselves in big cities like Yerevan. Consequently, we started to campaign to show them that they are clever and creative enough to start acting. By creating a social media platform and actively cooperating with the head of Oshakan village we started to inform young people about the opportunities we offer. After some period of them, when we already had an amazing audience consisting of young and enthusiastic village people, we began to provide great chances to develop ourselves, at the same time inspiring them to never give up. Mainly because, they are the next- bright generation of Oshakan, and we want to help them be the best version of themselves. What about the methods of education that we used- Uniting Bridge NGO strives to solve those issues in Aragatsotn regions with the help of non-formal education. The foundation from the first day put importance on youth education, and a lot of events and training have been organized to promote it. Qualified education guarantees a capable society, so our slogan is to raise awareness about education with non-formal communication in regions. That is why we are always trying to make new bonds with other organizations. We always encourage our team members and volunteers to participate in different projects; networking is an essential tool for us, helping our aim. The Uniting Bridge NGO emphasizes non-formal education and European values