Region: Armenia

Main Areas Of Interest: human rights

Fellowship Period: July- September 2007

Keywords: participatory democracy, advocacy, training

Biographical Profile:
Karen Hakobian is from Yerevan, Armenia, where he is the President and co-founder of Hujs (Hope), an NGO promoting a culture of participatory democracy for over 13 years. Hujs initiates public discussions, demonstrations, press conferences, and advocacy campaigns to bring attention to human rights issues.

Karen has been coordinating the “School of Democratic Culture” project, focusing on human rights for educators (trainers and teachers), young scholars, and children. At the time of the fellowship Karen was creating a summer program to bring together children and adults from different countries to work on advocacy campaigns and human rights strategy development in Armenia. Karen’s focus is to not only teach people about democratic approaches, but to show them how to practice them in real life and create careers focused around those values. By researching the history of democracy and public perceptions of it, Karen hopes to use this knowledge to advocate cultural change in Armenia.

Karen has used his expertise to participate in policy making for UNDP Armenia. He has brought together also business people, policy makers, and public activists to discuss corporate and social responsibility. At SoT Karen was interested in learning more about cross-cultural projects that promote democracy and human rights and that would benefit young activists.