National Endowment for Democracy

Project title: “Everything is political” 

Project duration: 24 months (08.01.2020 to 07.31.2022) 

Amount of funding: 117.671 $

Project description: The project is composed of four components:  

 Dialogue House 

Political Dialogue will host a series of closed-door, moderated discussions for civil society representatives and governmental officials, aimed at building increased institutional connections and promoting collaborative problem-solving. The Dialogue House will promote the democratic culture of dialogue in a spirit of cooperation. The name, in particular, not only references to the aim of the project - promoting dialogue - but also indicates the goal of having a permanent physical space, a safe, neutral environment for this. 

 “Political Guest” podcast 

To raise broader awareness of the reform processes and make them understandable for the general public, Political Dialogue will record eight episodes for “Political Guest” podcast series. Each episode will last approximately 20 minutes, and will include an informal chat with an invited guest speaker, mainly political opinion-shapers, civil society representatives as well as politicians. Each podcast episode will address a specific reform process.  

“Youth empowerment”

To equip community youth with knowledge on all stages of a project development cycle the “Political Dialogue” will organize a training session for young people from the regions of Armenia. Along with the training session, a “Political dinner” with the participation of political actors will be held to develop the culture of dialogue among regional youth. Through community issue mapping and further capacity building, the participants will prepare and submit community development projects, out of which the viable projects will be funded by Political Dialogue to be implemented in 2022․

“Strategic Political Communication in Armenia”

The next component of the project tends to support young researchers by providing small grants for research and policy recommendations on “Strategic Political Communication in Armenia”. After the selection and finalization processes, it is envisioned to hold a Political Communication conference with the participation of the young researchers, politicians and field experts to discuss and identify the main issues in the political communication culture of Armenia and give political actors recommendations on how to improve their communication when it comes to political processes.