Empowerment through art for displaced people

Following the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia has taken in approximately 120,000 forcibly displaced persons. In Yerevan alone, an estimated 40,000 refugees, including 7,000 school-aged children, have settled, often on the city's outskirts. These populations face numerous challenges: high unemployment, limited access to retraining, language barriers, and insufficient social support. For children, the psychological consequences of displacement are alarming, manifesting as behavioral problems, anxiety, isolation, and difficulties integrating into school.

This situation revealed a double bind: a lack of livelihoods for displaced artists and a lack of appropriate psychological support for affected children. These needs were clearly expressed by the displaced families themselves, who directly contacted the GOY Humanitarian Foundation to request training, employment, and mental health support for their children.

In response, the GOY Humanitarian Foundation built upon previous initiatives to offer an innovative and sustainable solution. Through its CeramaZart studio-school, already active since 2022, the foundation now offers a combined approach to socio-economic empowerment and emotional healing, through professional ceramics training for adults and clay therapy for children. Supported by European partners, this model has already yielded concrete results and generated strong engagement among participants.