Over the period of December 2021- April 2022, the NGO Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities (EREO) from Armenia will run a project with the aim of combating discrimination against people with disabilities by promoting the rights and ensuring their inclusion in the Lori region of Armenia. This project is carried out with the support of the European Union/Council of Europe joint programme Partnership for Good Governance, and its regional project “Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Eastern Partnership.

The project will seek to empower persons with disabilities through challenging the negative stereotypes existing at the society level and inform them about the most recent legislative developments in Armenia on the topic of people with disabilities.

In particular, the expected results of the project are the following:

• empower at least 30 persons with disabilities and their family members in the Lori region through capacity-building activities that challenge stereotypes, increase knowledge of rights and protections, and promote positive self-image;
• raise public awareness around the new law amongst community members, local government agencies, schools, and civil society organisations;
• challenge discriminatory perceptions and stereotypes about people with disabilities through public campaigns in the Lori region. 

This project is one of the six civil society supported by the European Union/Council of Europe regional anti-discrimination project, in Armenia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine aimed at increasing access to justice for groups that experience discrimination, hate speech and hate crime.

This activity is implemented in the framework of the regional project “Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in the Eastern Partnership”, financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in their Partnership for Good Governance phase II.