Armenia Receives $2.9 million Grant to Support Teachers in Providing Psycho-Social Support to Displaced Children from Nagorno-Karabakh

The World Bank announced today that Armenia has been selected to receive a new grant from the State and Peacebuilding Umbrella Trust Fund to support the mental health and wellbeing of displaced children and adolescents from Nagorno-Karabakh region in over 200 schools across the country.

The grant will finance an upcoming project to be implemented jointly by the World Bank and the Teach for Armenia Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, the Republican Pedagogical-Psychological Center, and the Armenian State Pedagogical University.

The $2.9 million grant will support the social integration of displaced children and adolescents into Armenian schools, and capacity building and mentoring of school staff to deliver tailored mental health and psychosocial support to displaced children and adolescents, their families, and students from the hosting communities.

It will provide technical assistance to design a comprehensive approach for the integration of displaced children and adolescents into the education system along with a specialized mental health and psychosocial support program through a combination of change-based learning, engagement with local communities, and robust monitoring and evaluation systems in schools. The grant will also support integrating the provision of mental health and psychosocial support into the new curriculum.

The State and Peacebuilding Umbrella Trust Fund (SPF) is a global multi-donor fund administered by the World Bank that works with partners to address the drivers and impacts of fragility, conflict, and violence and strengthen the resilience of countries and affected populations, communities, and institutions. SPF is supported by Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland.

The World Bank is currently financing 10 projects in Armenia totaling $500 million. Since its inception in Armenia in 1992, the World Bank has provided around $2.7 billion from International Development Association (IDA) to which Armenia became a donor in 2023, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and from trust funds. The World Bank is committed to continuing its support to Armenia in its development path for ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet.

PRESS RELEASE NO: 2024/ECA/050

Contacts

In Washington:

Sona Panajyan

[phone]

[e-mail]

In Yerevan:

Hasmik Soghomonyan

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Bricorama and Accenture Join Forces to Launch 'pAInt,' the Paint Expert Powered by Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

PARIS, France; Dec. 7, 2023 - Bricorama and Accenture (NYSE: ACN) have collaborated to develop 'pAInt,' a generative AI-powered shopping assistant that helps customers with their painting projects. Available on bricorama.fr, 'pAInt' has been designed to inspire and guide customers through each stage of their projects, from inspiration - by suggesting trending styles, to the purchase of materials, to best practice guides on the painting process itself. This new service enables the brand to offer its customers a unique online experience, and to accompany them to the successful completion of their 'Do-It-Yourself' (DIY) projects.

Generative Artificial Intelligence to enhance the customer experience

'pAInt' is a conversational tool that customers can interact with for help with paint colors and finishes, decorating ideas from Bricorama's video content, demonstrations, paint quantity, brushes and other accessories. Customers can then buy any of the products with a single click.

'We're proud to offer such an innovative and cutting-edge online service as 'pAInt.' It is further proof of our value proposition: to inspire and pedagogically support our customers in the success of their projects,' comments Laurent Pussat, president of Les Mousquetaires Group's DIY chains. 'Our customers expect a personalized, professional response, whatever the channel they choose. With 'pAInt,' we're offering a 'made-to-measure' online experience, which can then be rolled out in-store, as an extension of its omnichannel purpose.'

A project born from close collaboration between Bricorama and Accenture

Responding to customers' growing need for DIY and decoration support, 'pAInt' was developed thanks to a close collaboration between Bricorama and Accenture Song, Accenture's tech-powered creative group. The teams analyzed and mapped the value and opportunities that generative AI could bring to the DIY market. They then used this information to develop the 'pAInt' tool and services relating to Bricorama products. The use of generative AI is set to be extended to other product categories. At the point of sale, employees will also be able to use the tool to advise customers.

The new 'pAInt' tool was built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, to benefit from Azure's enterprise-grade security, stability and performance, as well as its natural language interaction and context understanding capabilities. It has been trained with patented content produced by Bricorama, which has enabled it to acquire an extremely high level of expertise.

Laurent Thoumine, senior managing director, and Europe lead for Accenture's retail industry group, said: 'Generative AI has the potential to be a real game-changer in retail and is driving companies to reinvent how they run their businesses, serve their customers, and get work done. That's why it's particularly great to see Bricorama lean in strongly on this exciting new technology, and through working closely and quickly with our team, design and deliver a tool that offers hyper-relevant retail suggestions to each customer in each decision-making moment.'

About ITM Home Equipment - Bricomarche, Brico Cash and Bricorama

Bricomarche, Brico Cash and Bricorama are the brands of the Les Mousquetaires Group dedicated to home equipment. They have more than 850 points of sale in Europe-including 679 Bricomarche, 49 Brico Cash and 142 Bricorama stores. In France, the three DIY brands of Les Mousquetaires represents the leading network of independents with more than 15% of market share. The other brands of the Les Mousquetaires Group are: Intermarche and Netto (food), Roady and Rapid Pare-Brise (mobility). For more information: @BricoramaFR - Journalists' area - @mousquetairesfr

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world's leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services-creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 733,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world's leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360-degree value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360-degree value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

Accenture Song accelerates growth and value for our clients through sustained customer relevance. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and experience design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, commerce transformation content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we help our clients operate at the speed of life through the unlimited potential of imagination, technology and intelligence.

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Contacts:

Rosie Milton-Schonemann

Accenture Song

[phone]

[e-mail]

Charlotte Rabilloud

Bricorama

[phone]

[phone] (mobile)

[e-mail]

Michelle Kamar

Bricorama

[phone]

[phone] (mobile)

[e-mail]

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