BEM: YPAC, youth progressive action center, invites young people to participate in trainings on empowerment, mental and physical self defense and gender specifics training.
Empowerment can be interpreted in many ways, these trainings focus on awareness of every aspect of your life. The centre of the life is you, your person, and your awareness. Raising your awareness and empowering yourself are first steps in finding your inner compass in life. Being aware of yourself prepares you for conflicts within yourself and conflicts with your surroundings. Empowering yourself makes you able to withstand the conflict, stand up for yourself and be true to yourself.
“Empowerment training” provided by BEM: YPAC is an eight day training program given on a weekly basis. Various aspects of empowerment are discussed such as:
l Mental and physical self-defence training, which focuses on both the mental and physical aspect of self-defence
l Group pressure, which focuses on techniques to recognize and withstand group pressure.
l Sexual education, which focuses on education about specific ways to deal in specific situation according to gender.
l Communication training, which focuses on conflict resolution and learning how to stand up for yourself.
The “Close to Me” training is an initiative of a Dutch NGO called “FALKOR: International Youth Cooperation” and Dutch empowerment trainers of the organization “TRAINERSGROEP WEERBAARHEID”. “Close to me” is a newly developed strategy in the battle to reduce the growing number of HIV/AIDS infections among youth, mixing educational training with various successful mental and physical defence techniques.
Cooperation with the Georgian NGO called “APD” and the Armenian NGO called “BEM” made it possible to start this training, with emphasis on peer-to-peer training, in the Caucasus region.
The extra value of these trainings is that the “Close to Me” strategy is especially developed by Dutch professional trainers together with the volunteers and tailor-made for youth in Georgia and Armenia, focussing on the actual problem of the gap between knowledge and practice among youth.
Contact BEM: YPAC for further information on the “Empowerment training” program by phone: 580-576 e-mail: info@bem.am
