About Us

“For Equal Rights” Educational Center NGO

“For Equal Rights” NGO has been launched as a civic initiative since 2013. Later on, in 2016 the initiative enlarged the scope of its activities and was registered as an NGO. The mission of FER is:

  • To PROMOTE the development of civic consciousness, enhancing values based on rule of law, creation of culture of discussions and debates by enlarging the opportunities of freedom of speech and pluralism.
  • To STIMULATE youth and CSO participation in social and political affairs, increase their influence on decision making process and raise the accountability of the public institutions.
  • To CREATE an alternative dialogue platform for meetings, discussions and debates for representatives of civil society, youth, academia and field of culture, media, policy makers and public figures.
  • To RAISE issues of public concern and create a new field for comprehensive discussions on these issues.
  • To BUILD the capacity of youth, civic activist groups and media representatives and promote development of legally conscious and demanding civil society.

We believe that the dignified and legally conscious individual is the guarantee of healthy society and we are working for promoting that.

  • All the people are born free and equal with their rights and dignity.
  • The human being and his/her dignity are ultimate values.
  • Everyone has the freedom of expressing his/her opinion, while refraining from offending someone’s dignity and reputation.

Our team

Gayane Abrahamyan

Founder of “For Equal Rights” NGO.

Gayane Abrahamyan

Gayane Abrahamyan is the founder of the “For Equal Rights” NGO. Since 2013 she has been an author of several media initiatives, as “Roundtable” TV series streamed on Yerkir Media TV channel, “Platform” online program on Lragir online magazine and series of analytical feature stories entitled “Life in the Margins: Human Stories” in Aravot online magazine. She has started her journalistic career since 2001, working in Armenian International Magazine (AIM) and Armenianow.com online newspaper and covering topics mainly related to human rights, more specifically on women’s rights; children’s rights; rights of people with fewer opportunities; social justice, educational, economic and political issues. Since 2007 Ms. Abrahamyan has been serving as a reporter for Eurasianet.org and is regularly writing for The Guardian. She has received more than 10 national and international awards, including "Catholic Press Award 2010" in US for the first place. Ms. Abrahamyan has taken part in series of training courses, workshops organized by the Reuters, New York Times, US International Center for Journalism, Boston Globe, etc.. She has been one of the speakers at TEDxYerevan with a talk entitled Can Journalists Avoid the Inner Call for Activism? | Gayane Abrahamyan | TEDxYerevanSalon. Currently she is serving as a Member of Parliament of RA.

Gohar Abrahamyan

Co-founder of “For Equal Rights” NGO and is serving as a project coordinator at the NGO․

Gohar Abrahamyan

Ms. Gohar Abrahamyan is the co-founder of “For Equal Rights” NGO and is serving as a project coordinator at the NGO. Abrahamyan has an MA degree from Yerevan State University Faculty of Journalism. Since 2010 she worked as a staff reporter in Armenianow.com, also correspondent for IWPR, AGBU magazine, “Civil Society Institute” NGO in a program entitled “Ceasefire: The pain of human loss”. She has also participated in many local and international training courses as 3 months long training of military journalism organized by the Ministry of Defense of RA; seminar for young Journalists on political issues in Berlin; study tour about territorial conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, training on issue of ethnic and religious minorities in Georgia.

Satenik Baghdasaryan

Is the President of For Equal Rights NGO.

Satenik Baghdasaryan

Ms Satenik Baghdasaryan is the President of For Equal Rights NGO. Previously, she was serving as coordinator of “Article 3” Human Rights Club. She has worked at the “Regional Studies Center” as a Project Director. She has been writing articles and papers for series of international magazines and has served as a trainer for many international youth projects. Ms. Baghdasaryan holds an MA in European Studies from the Yerevan State University (YSU), where she also earned a BA in Political Science. She completed the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems (AIPES), was one of the participants of Professional Fellows Program sponsored by the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affair and had her fellowship in a leading think tank in Chicago, US. She has also taken part in different academic programs by UK Cranfield University, UNAOC, Tartu university, Tbilisi state university, etc..

Arshaluys Mghdesyan

Coordinator of media projects at “Article 3” Club

Arshaluys Mghdesyan

Mr Arshaluys Mghdesyan is the coordinator of media projects at “Article 3” Club founded by “For Equal Rights” NGO. He has a BA, as well as an MA degree from Yerevan State University Faculty of International Relations. He has also studied at Caucasus Institute and been involved in media monitoring projects of the institute. He also completed the Regional Masters Program on Human Rights and democratization and studied at Council of Europe’s Yerevan School of Political Studies. Mr. Mgdesyan has started his media career at PanARMENIAN.Net news agency since 2009 mainly covering political and economic issues. In 2010-2014 he worked at Russian language news agency REGNUM and provided analysis on political, economic and social topics. He also wrote pieces for “Kavpolit.com”, “Bigcaucasus.com”, “EADaily.com.” Currently he works for Armtimes.com. Since 2015 he has joined “Public Journalism Club,” where he is an editor and manager of a project entitled “Media Center.”

Maria Abrahamyan

Human rights projects coordinator at the “Article 3” club.

Maria Abrahamyan

Maria Abrahamyan is a human rights projects coordinator at the “Article 3” club. Ms. Abrahamyan has been working in the human rights sphere since 2010. Starting her career from coordination of projects in socio-economic rights, Maria moved to civil rights sphere more concentrating on anti-discrimination, violence prevention and educational projects. Along with the coordination of several researches and education materials preparation in antidiscrimination sphere, her research and core recommendations contributed to the  civil society report on implementation of the  CEDAW in Armenia, appeared in the Concluding observations of the UN CEDAW Committee in 2016, that de facto, formulates gender and women’s rights policy of Armenia for upcoming 5 years.  She also prepared the “Legalizing the stereotypes: women victims: access to justice and gender stereotyping in the framework of gender based violence judicial proceedings” study . She is a regular arbiter at the “Intellectual Property Rights Moot Court” annual competition organized by the IPR-center.   Maria is an alumnus of the YSU Economics faculty and holds the LL.M. degree from the American University of Armenia.  

Anushik Rshtuni (Mkrtchyan)

Anushik Rshtuni (Mkrtchyan) is serving as a project assistant for the “Human Rights Festival” implemented by “For Equal Rights” NGO.

Anushik Rshtuni (Mkrtchyan)

Anushik Rshtuni (Mkrtchyan) is serving as a project assistant for the “Human Rights Festival” implemented by “For Equal Rights” NGO. Anushik has a BA degree on Public Administration from Yerevan State University, Faculty of International Relations and an MA degree on Human Rights and Democratization from Center for European Studies of the same university. Since her student years, Anushik has been actively engaged in civic activism initiatives. Formerly, she worked as a journalist in “A1+” TV and Public Radio of Armenia. She has taken part in series of seminars and training courses on different topics as conflict transformation, peace-building, liberalism, etc.. She also has an extensive experience in volunteering and election observation.