Our History

Our Story

"Shen" NGO was created in 1988 by a group of professors and students of Yerevan Polytechnic Institute to address some of the urgent humanitarian problems of Armenia. Since then, we have been involved in development endeavors in over 370 rural communities in the country, passed through almost all the stages of Rural Development, such as:

• Humanitarian Aid;

• Integrated Approach to Rural Development;

• Physical and Social Infrastructures Rehabilitation;

• Asset Based Community Development;

• Value Chain Development using the Markets for Poor (M4P) approach;

• Agricultural Cooperative Development.

The cornerstone of all our development projects is long-term sustainability, our vision since our establishment and implementation of all our activities in over 370 rural communities of Armenia. During the last decade, we engaged the facilitative leadership approach in our economic development projects (M4P projects), considering the potentially vital role of Market Forces in income generation for the rural population. We accomplished this with significant support from our sister NGO Chene France, The Yalkezian Foundation, and several other Armenian Diaspora organisations. We would also like to acknowledge our sponsors, as, without their generous contribution, we would not have been able to implement our projects.

Almost all our projects include Capacity Building components aiming to transfer minimum necessary knowledge and skills to our beneficiaries to ensure further sustainability of the projects. "Shen" NGO also has a positive experience of cooperation with big companies within the Corporate Social Responsibility model (e.g., Orange, France Telecom).