Well done... I believe the civil society actors in Armenia are making a great progress in terms of self organisation skills, active citizenship discourse and format development. The positive changes are occurring in terms of volunteer activism, the recognition of civic activism, the receptivity of active citizenship concept and implementation... and all this in few years time.

The big challenge at this stage, in my opinion, is more than skills development in the fields of self organisation and discourse techniques.  It is to go beyond and RESPECT and APPLY all values of democratic active citizenship based on human rights such as, respect of human dignity, tolerance, freedom of thinking and debate, solidarity, cooperation. I could not agree with what some of the activists did on "public hearing" (the one with Public Council participation).

For me, the main issue is not whether or not to "boycott" of TV channels. IT IS THE CULTURE of making positive change and that culture was absent at that "public hearing". It was mixture of mobism, intolerance, " no game against us", aggressivity, disregard of human dignity. This is exactly the culture that the new generation has inherited from the old generation that created the society we live in at present.

The self refection is key on the value and cultural dimension and HOW the one's who want to bring positive change, how us, we build a new society based on those values by changing our behaviors, our mindsets, and co-create with each other all the time. The formats are "formal" like we have now at state level if the substance is not in accordance with those values that we REALLY carry, use and give example by our behaviors.

We should overcome our egos and "the slave and the queen/ king" in our ego in order to be capable of self reflection on this dimension , the cultural and behavioral dimension. Armenian civil society and active citizenship is, at this stage of its development, NOW facing this key challenge. 

Armineh Arakelian, 5.08.2013