YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Only 1.5% of over 800 thousand young people living in Armenia is involved in public jobs. This statement was made by Atom Mkhitarian, the Chairman of the Youth Organizations' Association of the World Armenian Congress (WAC), at the press conference held on October 5. He mentioned that this index makes 20-25% in Poland and 85% in Denmark. According to Atom Mkhitarian, only 40-45 out of over 400 youth organizations registered in Armenia do active work. In the observation of Arthur Poghosian, the RA Deputy Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, 20% of the Armenian young people is envolved in the active public life as many young people are active, however, they are not members of non-governmental or youth non-governmental organizations. He also mentioned that the sum provided for the implementation of youth programs by the state budget is increasing year after year. Thus, if 37 million drams were allocated for this purpose in 1998, in 2007 the sum made 342 million drams (about 972 thousand U.S. dollars). According to Arthur Poghosian, the policy of the government in this sphere has recently been directed at the settlement of youth problems in regions, in particular. Youth regional centers have been created in 10 regions for that purpose. Another five community youth centers are envisaged to be created in Goris, Ararat, Stepanavan, Aparan, and Talin. It was also mentioned that the RA draft Law on "The young" has been submitted to the National Assembly for consideration.

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