Innovative and creative learning Centers for children in Armenia’s Lori region

Armenia's leading mobile opeator, VivaCell-MTS and the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) have launched a technology classroom, Creativity Lab, in a secondary school in Armenia's Lori region to provide access to innovative technologies for children in the village Tumanyan and neighboring communities. 

The Creativity Lab is a learning center corresponding to the requirements of contemporary education, equipped with a smart board, modern computers, as well as special mobile furniture. The latter is adaptable for working individually, in pairs and in groups.

The creative environment existing in such educational facilities as creativity labs allows for implementation of multifunctional activities and correlation of various tasks, including classes with the application of computers and technologies, training sessions, discussions, readings, games and intellectual activity. The projects initiated and implemented jointly by COAF and VivaCell-MTS aim at ensuring the equal development of rural communities and supplement the village schools with informational and communication technologies.

The Tumanyan Creativity Lab is the fifth technologically enhanced facility established as part of COAF-VivaCell-MTS partnership. Earlier in 2013-2014, the children from Sardarapat, Vanand and Hatsik communities of Armavir Marz and Arteni community of Aragatsotn Marz also became beneficiaries of the joint project.

“VivaCell-MTS considers important everything related to children’s education and their future, and supports the implementation of such projects. Children, especially in the regions, need access to educational tools, information sources, they need support in getting proper education and opportunity to decently live and work in their homeland. This project is another step on the way to achieve those objectives”, VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian stated.

In the words of Anoush Yedigaryan, COAF Director, “The concept of Creativity Labs was first introduced in Armenia and has been widely acclaimed as a cutting-edge means of ensuring an optimal learning and creative environment for the younger generation, and providing them with contemporary educational opportunities. COAF’s experience and analysis of the educational component of its comprehensive development programs has demonstrated that these inspirational initiatives raise the students’ level of interest towards education and contribute to high performance results”.

Education plays an important role for the population of Tumanyan community, which is very educated. The local school is home to 124 students. The newly opened Creativity Lab will be one of the key tools for developing the creative skills of rural children and raising the overall level of education in the region. Moreover, considering the fact that Tumanyan is located on Yerevan-Tbilisi highway and has also a strategic geographical location, it is expected that the new Creativity Lab will serve not only Tumanyan community, but also the whole Tumanyan Region of Lori Marz.

The Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that uses community-led approaches to reduce rural poverty, with a particular focus on children. Since the inception of its programs in 2004, COAF has funded and implemented education, health, social, and economic development programs serving more than 27,000 people in rural villages of Armenia. Each person impacted represents one of the more than one billion people living in poverty, and the methods used in Armenia can be replicated in other communities, where children are most vulnerable.