Stakeholders' Committee

Structure

Since 2001, when the "Helisinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office" NGO was officially registered, Arthur Sakunts has taken the leadership of the organization. Engineer-chemist by specialization A. Sakunts received the degree of Candidate of Chemical Sciences from the Institute of Element-Organic Components, Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992. After many years of experience in the field of his study, A. Sakunts was soon involved in the activities of civil society development and democracy values establishing in Armenia. Since 2004 A. Sakunts is the Head of "Vanadzor Press Club" and the Executive Director of "Debed River Basin Public Council" Foundation. As an active public activist, A. Sakunts has participated in a number of international conferences, discussions as well as seminars devoted to human rights protection, peace building, democracy, civil society participation, etc.
In 2007 A. Sakunts was elected as a Stakeholders' Committee member.

"Helsinki Citizens` Assembly Vanadzor office" NGO

Helsinki Citizens` Assembly Vanadzor office was founded on March 21, 1998 as an office of the Armenian Committee of Helsinki Citizens` Assembly, within the program "Creation of Local Network of Helsinki Citizens` Assembly in the regions of the Republic of Armenia", financed by the democratic programs of TACIS. From the very first day of the foundation of HCA Vanadzor the contribution of volunteers to the activities of the organization was great. The first event that HCA Vanadzor organized was "The role of information in forming civil society" taken place June 21, 1998. Protection of freedom of speech, information dissemination, rights and interests of journalists and mass media has always been in the highlight of the activities of HCA Vanadzor. Before April 9, 2001 when HCA Vanadzor office was registered as an independent non-governmental organization in the Ministry of Justice HCA Vanadzor participated in the implementation of projects of HCA Armenian Committee. Particularly, the main problems of youth and women and factors inhibiting their involvement in public processes were studied. Within the frameworks of these activities, the first efforts were made in using methods of investigating public opinion, organizing round tables, forming cooperation with other NGOs. Parallel to this, attaching importance to the necessity of implementing activities in the direction of human rights protection effective cooperation was formed with other right protective NGOs – Armenian Helsinki Committee, Helsinki Association, and Association of Women with University education. It means that being registered as an independent organization, HCA Vanadzor gathered enough human, professional resources, the further development of which needed both involvement of extra financial and human resources and formation of new cooperation directions. In this respect the cognitive visit of Mient Jan Faber- HCA political secretary, Mary Caldor – HCA co-chair, Arzu Abdullayeva – coordinator of Azerbaijan National Committee, representatives of HCA Armenian and Georgian Committees on January 31, 1999 had a great importance. In August of the same year Vilco de Jonge- executive director of IKV, strategic partner of HCA South Caucasus network and Marten van Harten- head of HCA South Caucasus office visited HCA Vanadzor. In the result of the meeting, the joint project of HCA Vanadzor and IKV on the solution of the rights of missing soldiers of the Karabakh war and problems of their families was worked out. The project has been implemented by HCA South Caucasus network since 2002.
Since September of 2000 by the financial support of IKV HCA Vanadzor has implemented its first independent project which was about awareness raising in Vanadzor on the commitments of the Republic of Armenia in affiliating with the Council of Europe.
Since May 1, 2002, HCA Vanadzor moved from a two-room temporary dwelling to a new place.
After being registered as an independent organization, HCA Vanadzor implemented a number of projects on local, national and regional levels. The framework of activities became more effective due to involvement of new partners and HCA Vanadzor is recognized as right protective and peace building organization. It is a non-political, non-religious, non-profitable NGO, which unites individuals who admit the supremacy principles of democracy, tolerance, pluralism and human rights as values.
The mission of HCA Vanadzor is the promotion and support for civil initiatives on local level, strengthening right protective and peace building activities on local, national and regional levels.
The vision of HCA Vanadzor is to form a society where the supreme values are human rights, democracy and peace.
In order to achieve its mission HCA Vanadzor works in three main directions

- human rights defense
- promotion for civil initiatives
- peace-building