Empowering Young Girls in Gyumri

Nor Luyce aims to provide girls the means to become self-sufficient, healthy, globally aware young women, who have set personal and career goals and who have created an action plan of how to achieve them. Our program was developed to improve self-esteem, self-reliance, and a sense of community and then build on these skills and potential. We believe in empowering teenage girls from orphanages and low-income families to build a community of strong, thoughtful, creative young women who are the future of Armenia.

In order to improve the future and career opportunities for girls from socially disadvantage families and foster cares, we prove a 3-phase, 3-year mentoring program that impacts approximately 60 girls a year. Currently, we are seeking funding for our first phase, which will provide a mentoring to 20 new Nor Luyce beneficiaries, aged 13-14 raising the number from 60 to 80.

Our Mentoring Phase program covers 11 months, during which 20 girls, aged 13-14, from socially vulnerable families and foster care receive mentoring. Each mentor-mentee pair meet approximately 40 times for individual meetings as well as partake in 20 group meetings. During our mentoring phase, we also focus on empowering participants to become active community members through service activities, cultural events, and building leadership through various responsibilities such as presenting information to their peers and other organization members. We also offer tutoring services for any participant who is struggling academically.

In order to decrease the likelihood that girls will be trafficked or married off at a young age, we strive to provide teenagers (13-14 year old) with a positive role model and a strong connection with other girls and prominent community leaders. We focus on career aspirations and how to create the best version of themselves, using the traits, skills, and strengths the participants already have. We also believe, that in order to empower young girls, we need to have a comprehensive approach to their development, as such following the first phase we then focus on skill-building trainings, career development, and offer scholarships for higher education. As of now, we have seventeen girls currently involved in higher education institutions, two more girls have already graduated from colleges and universities and now they work with their profession. On top of these, we have one mentee who graduated from a college which she had to admit because of the inforce of her parents, however, she could find the inner strength to change her profession and pursue the degree that was close to her heart.