Armenian Gay Rights Movement: Key Events

  • December 2008 - Armenia endorses historic UN statement against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
  • September 2008 - PINK Armenia launches Information Centre in Yerevan
  • May 2008 - Armenian gay women group, the Women-Oriented Women’s (WOW) Collective, was established
  • December 2007 - PINK Armenia, second LGBT related NGO, was registered in Armenia
  • July 2006 - WFCE (also known as Menq), first LGBT NGO in Armenia, was formally registered by the Ministry of Justice
  • June 2006 - First (reported) symbolic gay wedding in Echmiadzin, Armenia
  • October 2004 – AGLA France organised first ever picket in front of the Armenian embassy in Paris. Around 30 gay activists protested on 30 October against homophobic outbursts by political forces and media in Armenia. AGLA's open letter to then president Kocharyan was published in Haykakan Zhamanak daily.
  • November 2003 - GLAG, first ever gay and lesbian Armenian group, was formed in Yerevan. Later, it was transformed into Menq - WFCE NGO
  • December 2002 - Decriminalisation of gay male sex in Armenia
  • December 2001 - AGLA France was established (ceased to exist in October 2007)
  • 1998 - LA Gay and Lesbian Armenian Society (GALAS) was established. Subsequently, LGBT associations were established in Armenian Diaspora elsewhere

Friday, 19 September 2008

PINK Armenia launches Information Centre in Yerevan

Unzipped: Gay Armenia highly recommends PINK Armenia for all your information needs and support while in Yerevan, Armenia

UPDATE! - 5 July 2009: PINK Armenia launches "Masculinity: breaking stereotypes" project at their new office in downtown Yerevan

UPDATE! - 18 March 2009: Sadly, due to financial reasons, this office was shut down in March 2009. However, PINK Armenia is active, and, in fact, widened its activities online and offline. You may contact them via their newly launched website:

http://www.pinkarmenia.org/
***

Official launch of the PINK Information Centre in downtown Yerevan (see below for contact information) took place last Friday, 12 September 2008. The office is conveniently located near the Yerevan State University.

"PINK Information Center"
40 Charents str, apt. 45
Yerevan, Armenia
tel. +374 10 556 946
Working hours: 11am-19pm
Working days: Monday-Friday




There are good bunch of people working there. Friendly, energetic, open to new ideas and discussions. They know local scene perfectly. They also work with local and international human rights related and other relevant NGOs, as well as some governmental agencies, particularly, the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs.

Below are some pictures from the launch event. We then end up clubbing in one of downtown Yerevan discotheques. We did not stay long though, still, it was fun.


Head of PINK Armenia Mamikon Hovsepyan

Lara Aharonian of Women’s Resource Centre and Mikael Danielyan of Armenia's Helsinki Association

PINK Information Centre has began developing a library of relevant literature, leaflets, CDs/DVDs, educational materials in Armenian, Russian, other languages which they intend to expand into a comprehensive and useful source of information on LGBT related issues, STI prevention (with the special attention to HIV/AIDS) and so on. Any help in this regard or other support for PINK’s activities will be highly appreciated.

Relevant links:

PINK Armenia MySpace page

PINK Armenia Facebook page

PINK Armenia blog

Soon PINK Armenia will launch its own website.

1 comments:

PINK Armenia said...

Hey Mika, thanks for this nice article.
We have already visitors and people who are interested in our work.