Our Story
Established in 2018, Women’s Fund Armenia is a local feminist organization that supports women and girls in Armenia through capacity building, providing financial support and development of feminist movement.
The Fund’s mission is to support women’s movement building in Armenia by providing necessary resources and tools to women’s organizations, women’s initiatives, feminist activists, researchers and scholars to design and implement their ideas to advance women’s rights and feminist projects.
The Fund’s goal is to develop a sustainable feminist philanthropy to support the strengthening of feminist discourse, safe spaces and collective initiatives addressing main challenges that women and girls are facing today in Armenia.
Since its establishment, the Fund has been able to put together many exciting projects, received many interesting proposals, were able to support more than 100 projects, conducted a series of capacity development workshops for women from various groups, to reach out to more than 1000 women and girls. We are a member of the Prospera- International Network of Women’s Funds European Funds Convening, have a number of reliable and supportive international partners.
Our partners about us
Our Team
Siran Hovhannisyan
program coordinator
Siran is responsible for the Fund’s outreach and monitoring of projects implemented by the Fund and its partners.
Yelena Sargsyan
project assistant
Yelena carries out the communication with the Funds partners regarding their ongoing projects.
Armine Markosyan
Head of Communications
Armine is responsible for the Fund’s social media strategies, PR, visibility issues and other communication-related issues.
Sona is the coordinator of FemStory project. The project aims to inform the public about the Armenian feminist women, as well as archive women’s oral stories.
Our Board
Ripsime Paronikyan
Board member
An ardent feminist and civil justice activist, Ripsime is committed to creating a safer and more equitable experience for women and girls everywhere. Born in Yerevan Armenia, Ripsime immigrated to the United States when she was ten years old. She has a B.S. in Mathematics/ Mathematics -Education and has recently completed a Public Leadership Credential from Harvard Kennedy School — credentials that pathway to a master’s degree from Harvard School. Ripsime has been a business owner/educator for most of her working tenure; however, she has pivoted her focus combined with her experience/education, to help
organizations and communities imagine and implement solutions to the adaptive and moral challenges they face.
Nvard Manasyan
board member
Nvard V. Manasyan has more than ten years of experience in the education sector. She has worked for the government and international organizations managing projects and engaging in policy advisory development processes. From 2007, she has started teaching in higher education institutions and has established a center for quality assurance in one of the universities in Armenia. Starting from 2009, she was a member of TEMPUS Higher Education Reform Experts. Currently, she is specializing in gender transformative programming. Her research interests are in higher education policy and gender issues in education. She holds Master’s degrees (or equivalent) from Engineering University of Armenia, American University of Armenia and University of Cincinnati.
Sevan Petrosyan
Board member
Sevan Petrosyan is a Project Manager and gender focal point in World Vision Armenia. Before World Vision Armenia Sevan has worked in human rights and development sector for years, namely with UN Agencies and other inter-governmental and international organizations, and also in protection through policy-making in political and diplomatic offices in Europe, the Middle East and South Caucasus in particular. She is passionate advocate and activist for gender equality and women’s rights, particularly in working on all levels towards positive changes in social norms harming women and girls and their protection. Sevan has a master’s degree in Comparative Legal Studies from American University of Armenia. She lives and works in Yerevan.
Varanta Niziblian
board member
Varanta Niziblian is 19 year old. She is a Human Rights student at Malmö University, Sweden. Human rights and especially women’s rights has been a passion of Varanta’s since she was a kid. Varanta is an active volunteer in women’s rights centers and an activist fighting for equality and justice for all humans and creatures and earth.
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