YEREVAN, APRIL 5, NOYAN TAPAN. The first stage of works of working out the National Youth Report of Armenia by the RA Ministry of Culture and Youth Issues finished. The report is a complex study that presents the existing state of the youth of Armenia, and will in future be a basis for working out and implementing a state long-term strategy. As Arsen Soghomonian, the Chief of the Youth Policy Department of the Ministry's staff informed at the April 4 press-conference, public discussions of the preliminary stage of working out the report will start this month. Besides, the preliminary variant of the report will be presented in April to the Department of Youth Issues of the Council of Europe, and CE experts' visit to Armenia is scheduled for summer. During this visit they will present their proposal concerning the preliminary variant. Arsen Soghomonian mentioned that Armenia is the first among the CIS countries that prepares the National Youth Report. Works of preparing the report started in June, 2005, for what the UN Development Program allocated 15 thousand dollars. An experimental group was created for works of working out the report on the initiative of the Ministry, and the "Sotsium" sociological center held sociological surveys among 1000 people surveyed. 176 issues presented in 8 blocks involved the most important problems relating to youth at present, including the issues of education, family, spiritual-cultural ones, those of employement, sports.

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