About the project: Armenia, with its varied landscape, is a perfect location for the development of various extreme sports, including snow-kiting (surfing on a snowy surface in winter) and kite surfing (surfing on the water surface in summer). Armenia’s mountainous regions have serious potential for snow-kiting, while water surfaces such as Lake Sevan, Lake Arpa and a couple of other mountainous reservoirs are perfectly suited to kite surfing. Such initiatives not only promote a healthy lifestyle and the participation of youth in sports activities, but also have great potential to attract tourists and extreme sports-enthusiasts.

Between 2013 and 2015, the “Kiteboarding Development Center”, a local NGO in Gyumri, implemented 4 projects which were targeted to the promotion of these sports in Armenia on an amateur level. Committed to the idea of exploiting Armenia’s potential, the “Kiteboarding Development Center” NGO presents a project called “Kiteschool Gyumri”. The project consists of two major components; theoretical input courses and long-term practical courses. It also includes raising awareness through campaigns about the specifics and benefits of these sports in Armenia and beyond its borders.

The aim of the project is to promote a healthy lifestyle and involvement in sports among youth and adolescents as a form of leisure and to develop the region’s potential in extreme sports tourism as a means for local development.