I would be interested to learn of people's reaction, and would be especially interested to know what sort of educational initiatives, if any, would accompany these visual displays. Posters are important, but what we urgently need is EDUCATION.
The British Council in Armenia in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Social Issues launched an awareness-raising city campaign "A world without discrimination" on 10 December, the International Human Rights day and in the framework of the one-month disability campaign announced by the Government.
The campaign features posters and flyers devoted to the British Council's main six areas of equality and diversity – Age, Gender, Disability, Religion, Race and Sexual Orientation. You can download the leaflet in English (MS Word, 2.19MB) or Armenian (MS Word, 2.01MB).
The aim of the campaign is to promote equality in these six areas through positive images of diversity and flyers containing a number of general etiquette and communication tips that will help people to avoid discriminatory language and manners in regard to the representatives of different communities to create a fair and inclusive society that values diversity and respects human rights and individual differences.
During 2010 the campaign will reach higher educational institutions, transport and other public areas in the capital and marzes of Armenia.
This is nice and all, but it demonstrates something that is really a bit ridiculous. Here's my question about these posters: where are the Armenians on the poster? I mean seriously, they couldn't have made an effort to photograph Armenians to use in these pictures? I realize that the homogeneity of Armenian society makes it difficult to include pictures of Armenians to demonstrate diversity, but they could have photographed Armenians with people of color, or with people of different religions or--this one would have been huge--a gay or lesbian Armenian. I mean, come on British Council, if I'm an Armenian and I see this poster, how relevant does it seem to me?
ReplyDeleteI agree, John, we need pictures of Armenian society, to feel that it is our problem also.
ReplyDeleteAnyway at least we have this now and hope later not only British Council but also other organizations will manage to create such posters including Armenian faces and Armenian reality
Excellent points, John. Totally agree. Let's hope this won't be a one-off thing, but rather an evolving one, and in time becomes more relevant and comprehensive.
ReplyDeleteAnti-discrimination posters in Yerevan metro
ReplyDeleteHi Guys-
ReplyDeleteI think if you re-read the comments and actually listen to what you are saying, it is very sad. There are all sorts of Armenians, including "Asian" and black Armenians. What you think they should put some short guy in gold chains with dark skin a huge nose and a unibrow in their pictures, lol? I suppose the people do look a bit "odar"-ish (used with humor on my part) but that is not the point.
If Armenians cannot recognize themselves sin others, then that is a very sad thing.
They should poster Etxhmiadzin and every other awful Armenian Church with these!
(Hi MIka djan!)