Frontline Youth Network
A Case Study on Building Peace Through Change
This case study was developed through an interview with Lusine Kosakyan, Network Director and co-founder of Frontline Youth Network, an Armenian youth-led peace-building organisation and written by Georgia Booth.
Artwork courtesy Devi Leiper O'Malley
Frontline Youth Network - Founding and evolving
Lusine co-founded Frontline Youth Network (FYN), a youth-led peace-building organisation in Armenia. She established the organisation in 2017 at 22, initially focusing on grassroots activism and community development. After the 2020 war, the organisation shifted its focus to peacebuilding and education. The inspiration for the group emerged many years earlier as Lusine learned more about social movements and became conscious of social justice. She explained that within the context of conflict and evolving youth activism in Armenia, the need for community-based peacebuilding became evident. The organisation now concentrates on peace education, gender equality, and trauma-responsive services.
“Before the 2018 revolution, there was youth activism. It was not yet a movement, but something was in the air. Everyone wanted to contribute in a way to their communities, and I was a part of that wave of change. Soon after, the 2020 war happened, which made us refocus and reorganise. We decided to make peacebuilding our main focus.”
Reflecting on transition as a leader, as a collective
Lusine noticed how organisations often become closely identified with their leaders, particularly charismatic ones. She saw how this impacted how the organisations operated and collaborated with others.
“I disliked this as a culture, because I saw that sometimes people like each other, and their organisations are fine working together, and sometimes they have a misunderstanding, and their organisations never do anything together... having this experience and observing that made me conscious about not becoming the only person the organisation might be known for.”
While FYN does not have a strict age-out policy, Lusine remained mindful of her age as the leader of a youth-led organisation. Combining personal reasons with organisational considerations, she decided to broach the subject with her team, which consisted of five staff, a close-knit board, and a wider community of ambassadors. Lusine reflected too on her evolving priorities and areas of interest, determining that these changes should not dictate the direction of FYN.
“I saw that the way I work—my methods or my perspective on things—was also changing. But me growing doesn't mean that the organisation should also change its strategies or way of doing activism.”
During a strategic planning meeting, Lusine raised the question of succession to her team. While concerned at first, open discussion about her transition helped normalise the conversation and enabled collaborative planning for the future.
“As a youth organisation, we are perhaps more ambitious and ready for experimentation. Therefore, we are trying to do things that are even uncomfortable for us, including starting such discussions, and I am not handling it alone. We are trying to understand together what will happen and we’re getting ready day by day.”
From my story, to our story
Lusine initially worried that the organisation’s story was grounded in her own very personal experiences since childhood, potentially affecting its funding prospects and its future. The team developed a new strategic approach, encouraging each member to share the story of their own personal connection to FYN, creating a diverse collection of stories for the organisation.
“Each of them have their stories. The young delegates or board members. They have their own stories and it doesn't matter when they joined. Their path looks different, but all together they make the story of the organisation. So it is not one story, but a set of stories.”
Nurturing leadership and planning for change
Other challenges include the messiness of handing over donor relationships and identifying future leadership. To ensure the team felt ownership over these processes, they undertook scenario planning together.
“We started talking about emergency planning and crisis management, which emerged as a response to the war. What do we do when there is an emergency situation in the country? And then I shifted the discussion. Okay, let's talk about internal affairs. What we do when a key personnel is leaving—let's say me—and that was how we started discussing this. At first, there was confusion, but then we started generating ideas. We built scenarios and we created a mind map together. That was positive, since it was not one person pushing a certain way forward.”
Lusine emphasised the importance of nurturing leadership within the team and trying to understand the potential hesitation to assume leadership roles, whether due to burn-out, lack of support, or family responsibilities. The team also began to capture institutional memories, documenting institutional processes and roles and responsibilities within the team. As a leader, she emphasises the importance of finding joy in the small tasks to keep her feeling connected to the cause and her work, particularly when engaging in heavy and traumatic contexts. She and the team decided to deliberately create space for joy, colour, and beauty in the way they work.
“We had a series of serious events, conferences, roundtable discussions, dialogue with this or that matter, and usually there are lots of problems discussed. We felt like each of our events were becoming increasingly depressing. We were also trying to understand how trauma can be dealt with. We had this idea to bring colour and music to our events. And since then, we always have canvas to paint, there is always an art corner. There is always music in the background. When there are enough pieces of art, we will have an exhibition. I feel that these more creative co-working spaces are so important and helpful.”
Along with creating more space for art and music, Lusine and the team now begin each meeting with personal check-ins to acknowledge individual states of mind. They have implemented anonymous feedback mechanisms to surface any concerns or questions and built time into team meetings to talk about what is happening in the organisation. The team has adopted a staff care approach emphasising mutual support and individual well-being.
While Lusine continues in her leadership role, the transition remains open and transparent, with collective planning ongoing to determine its ultimate form.
