Լուծումներ համայնքային խնդիրներին/solutions to Community Problems

The Civic Development and Partnership Foundation (CDPF) is an intermediary service organization that contributes to the development of civil society in Armenia. We do this through three main activities: providing financial support to civil society organizations (CSOs), conducting trainings, and experience exchanges and taking part in joint efforts to improve the environment that CSOs work in. During the last five years Counterpart has cooperated with its three partner organizations in developing their skills and their ability to provide the needed support to Armenian NGOs. Our work with Counterpart helped us to develop our skills in two major areas. First it helped as a donor organization: all the skills and capacities we developed in providing and managing grants will help us in the future to work with different partners. Secondly, we developed as an organization that provides trainings and consultations. A large group of trainers were trained, which helps civil society organizations to develop. One of Counterpart and CDPF’s partner organizations is the Martuni Women’s Community Council, who recently improved the welfare of each citizen of Martuni through a project they implemented. Before implementing the program our organization identified the needs of the Martuni community, and the individual and community needs of some groups. Before implementing the program our organization identified the needs of the Martuni community, and the individual and community needs of some groups. During this research it became obvious that the most important problem the city faces is considered to be its cleanness and the use of pesticides during the agricultural planting season. People consider cleanliness to be the main problem in the community, including the presence of plastics in the garbage and their disposal. We were implementing this project as a civic advocacy program for the first time and CDPF’s help was very comprehensive. First of all we became skilled in the field of civic advocacy, starting with organizing marches, concentrating the population’s attention on the problem by broadcasting it on television, mobilizing people and organizing legislative initiatives. That was the most important thing. Second, it gave us the financial ability to concentrate the population and local government attention on the problem in order to find a solution.