International Center for Human Development organized a one day training which was part of the project “The Role of Civil Society in EU integration processes: real engagement though effective involvement” supported by International Visegrad Fund. 

The goal of the project is to facilitate European integration processes in Eastern partnership countries, through:

• providing access to the unique experience and know-how of the Visegrad Group countries in enhancing the role of the civil society in the European integration processes, and

• strengthening the institutional capacity of the partners from Eastern Partnership countries 

To contribute to the above goal ICHD and partners will organize capacity building interactive trainings for CSOs in EaP countries involved in the project: Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. 

The first local interactive capacity building training took place on 8th February 2013, at Ani Plaza Hotel, in Yerevan, Armenia. 

The trainers of the project were Ms. Christina Sargsyan from International Center for Human Development (Armenia) and Mr. Grigorij Meseznikov from Institute for Public Affairs (Slovakia). 

On the first part of the of the training Mr.  Meseznikov talked about Think tanks and NGOs as  actors of public debate and policy making process in transitive society and about

Media performance in two approaches: self-promotion (organization’s presentations,  TT/NGO in media, media about TT/NGO, „talking heads“) and agenda-solving (issues, social  campaigns, advocacy and lobbying activities).  On the second part of the training Ms. Grigoryan presented the challenges of “popularizing” the process of European integration in Armenia and showed the importance of public narrative in the  context of European integration and gave examples how to construct public narrative through stories.

In the end Mrs. Astghik Injeyan made concluding remarks.