The idea of The Day of Silence was launched in 1996 when Maria Pulzetti, a student at the University of Virginia, USA, initiated an event to make the violence and humiliation of LGBT students more visible. The Day of Silence is celebrated annually, on April. On that day Students take a day-long vow of silence to symbolically represent the silencing of LGBTQ students.
The Day of Silence has been commemorated in Armenia since 2010. “Pink” human rights defender NGO also organizes events on this occasion.
In year 2011 organization has launched its e-magazine, called “As you”!
In 2012 the organization held a press conference during which speakers presented about the effective mechanisms of prevention and the need of elaborating measures, in particular about the necessity of having competent professionals in educational institutions as well as about the education and protection of human rights. The organization’s staff prepared posters with titles ”I’m erasing my mask of silence”.
In 2013, organization carried out a press conference-discussion on bullying, degrading treatment and violence in Armenian educational institutions. Speakers presented cases, personal stories, which were collected during daily work time by the organization’s staff. Also were presented videos (1, 2) produced by organization, which called on young people to break the silence and speak out about the humiliation and discrimination that happens in educational institutions.
In 2014 likewise a few dozen youth people join to the Day of Silence online campaign calling the public their messages to break the silence. They made selfies and shared pictures with the messages on how they are breaking the silence.
An online campaign was held and an article was published on this topic later in the future.
The Day of Silence is celebrated on April 12 this year. Within this framework of the event, the organization created a thematic photoshoot and collection of LGBT people’s stories, which were posted on the Facebook page of The Day of Silence: facebook.com/dosarmenia.
