The European Youth Peace Summit “Tolerance and Harmony in Diversity” took place in May, 2004 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The event gathered around 550 young leaders from the whole Europe, motivated to make an influence on the global changes. Five member of Stepanavan Youth Center represented Armenia during the Summit.

Young leaders worked under the motto “Tolerance - the Harmony in Differences”, which was very understandable for others, so they could think about the tolerance, harmony or differences between people. During the Summit and under that slogan, the hosts talked about youth and the risks they cope with, including HIV / AIDS, drug abuse, and social issues, such as community and its development, formal or informal education, youth presence in social changes based on local, national, regional up to global level, economy and employment. All these topics were under the cover of main-peace raise and develop. The youth leaders present created a Youth Declaration that called for an expansion of the role youth play in society, an end to discrimination, pan-European respect, communication channels to be opened to young people, and recognition of the value of education and positive communication.

The Summit and the ideas that were presented, were noticed by some very eminent important politicians like Mr. Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of International Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mrs. Sonja Mozer Sarah, the Special Representative of General Secretary of European Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ministries of Civil and Foreign Ministry Affair in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mr. Bawa Jain, the chairman of World Youth Peace Summit. The last day of maintains, Mr. Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, sent a message to participants, wishing Conference to experience a great success and prosperity. The following is a quote from Mr. Blair’s note: “More than ever before, the world needs forums which promote dialog and understanding, and which transcend limits and prejudices, and the exact example is the European Youth Peace Summit”.

The Summit ended with undersigning the Declaracy of the EYPS, which will be presented in Nairobi, on the World Peace Youth Summit in October. The Summit officially closed on 10th of May with the performance of “Carmina Burana” concert-opera.

World Youth Peace Quest was an initiation of Youth Peace Summit organizers. It encouraged young people to celebrate our beautiful planet while spreading the message of peace. Stepanavan Youth Center joined the international actions and organized small Armenian Youth Peace Quests - distributing cookies to children in local kindergartens and boarding school, organizing contest of pictures, and distributing books to local libraries.

In Armenia, as in other countries around the world, many young people leave their hometowns and search of greater opportunities in large urban areas. To help stem the tide of teen migration, Lilit Simonyan formed the Stepanavan Youth Center, as place where young Armenians can enhance their knowledge and skills, get involved in community development, and invest their energies in the development of their country. The project “Information Accessibility for Youth” was implemented with the International YouthActionNet Award (International Youth Foundation), received by the founder and first president of SYC, Lilit Simonyan. The project aimed at promoting the leadership capabilities of youth in Stepanavan.

The role of youth is crucial and significant in the development of civil society, through their participation, involvement and activeness.

The project “Youth Leadership Club” was directed to the increase of civil activeness of youth in Stepanavan, developing leadership skills among 15-24 year-old young people, providing information, organizing open dialogue with successful young leaders of different spheres, organizing visits to regional active youth nonprofits and coordinating the initiatives of active youth. SYC selected a group of youngsters with certain leadership qualities and potential who got intensive leadership and management training. Also computer literacy and internet training were organized for them. They had regular free access to internet and were provided materials and information on various aspects of management, as well as opportunities they could participate. The participants were provided possibility to design and carry out their own small community projects. Meetings were held with successful young leaders in political, business, and nonprofit sectors. The SYC organized visits to other regional youth nonprofit organizations active in Lori region for the participants.

There are a few local libraries in Stepanavan. All of them have received very few if any new books during the last decade. Stepanavan Youth Center donated 50 foreign language books to two of the libraries.

Quite a few young people and children in Stepanavan enjoy writing poems and stories in their free time. Stepanavan Youth Center decided to collect the writings of youngsters and publish a book. This was the second publication. One hundred copies of the book have been distributed in Stepanavan.

Youth debate club started as a small initiation of SYC volunteers. It became an active and lively project unifying young people of Stepanavan. The regular weekly gatherings of the 14-29 year-old club members aimed to provide possibility for them to discuss various challenging/controversial issues and topics.