ZANG Community Justice Centers
Success
Throughout 2006-2010, within the framework of the Armenian National Program for Child Protection of Juvenile Police, PH International in close collaboration with the Armenian Police has been implementing the Community Justice Centers’ project for Armenian juveniles. Six Community Justice Centers (CJC) currently operate in Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Alaverdi, Ijevan and Chambarak. Through active partnerships among law enforcement officials, juvenile service programs, the community and youth the CJCs implement restorative justice programming for juvenile offenders of non-violent crimes. The activities of the CJCs aim to reduce youth delinquency and crime, and support public safety. To date, 356 juveniles were referred to the CJCs and the majority of youth undergoing the ZANG CJC reparative process showed significant changes in their behavior along with better attendance and performance at school as reported by their parents and teachers. One of the recent highlights of the ZANG program was the acknowledgement letter received from the director of the Chambarak Library: Overview
Throughout 2006-2010, within the framework of the Armenian National Program for Child Protection of Juvenile Police, PH International in close collaboration with the Armenian Police has been implementing the Community Justice Centers’ project for Armenian juveniles. Six Community Justice Centers (CJC) currently operate in Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Alaverdi, Ijevan and Chambarak. Through active partnerships among law enforcement officials, juvenile service programs, the community and youth the CJCs implement restorative justice programming for juvenile offenders of non-violent crimes. The activities of the CJCs aim to reduce youth delinquency and crime, and support public safety. To date, 356 juveniles were referred to the CJCs and the majority of youth undergoing the ZANG CJC reparative process showed significant changes in their behavior along with better attendance and performance at school as reported by their parents and teachers. One of the recent highlights of the ZANG program was the acknowledgement letter received from the director of the Chambarak Library:
“Dear ZANG staff,
In 2007 “Astghatsolk” NGO started the implementation of the ZANG Legal Socialization Program Community Justice Center project in Chambarak. The Center greatly impacts our community and addresses youth problems that have been neglected for a long time. The Community Justice team work not only with offenders but also with children at schools for prevention purposes. One of the significant advantages is that the Community Justice Center creates opportunities for the kids to repair the harm caused by their wrong actions through doing something positive. Thanks to this approach, our library benefited a lot. The kids undergoing reparative process at the Community Justice Center started repairing old books at our library. As a result, 97 books have been thoroughly repaired by kids and the library continues successful collaboration with the Center. It’s worth mentioning that after the Soviet Union collapse the library had no opportunities for the repair and restoration of the old books.
We would like to express our gratitude to you for the implementation of the ZANG project in Chambarak and the assistance provided to the Chambarak library.
G. Melkumyan
Director of the Chambarak Library”
In addition, the Chambarak CJC team members mention with delight that the kids not only got engaged in the process of repairing the old books at the library but they also developed the habit of reading the repaired books and exchanging the books with their friends too.
Congratulations to the ZANG CJC team members and good luck in 2010!
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Armenia |