Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

More than 5,000 young people in Goris are developing community policies to represent the community council

Freedom of Information Center and the Partnership and Teaching NGO have launched the "Youth for their Future" subgrant project within the framework of the "Informed Armenia" project, which is co-funded by the European Union.

"We had the idea of the project for a long time. The problem was that raising the role of youth in the development processes of the country by the state and civil society has always been highlighted in all the circles. But it was another question in what situation we are and how much young people are involved in regions, local self-governance processes, how much they participate in the decision-making process, and how much their voice is heard at all.

We have designed the project and we implement it with the support of Freedom of Information Center. The main goal of this project is to develop a community youth policy that will clearly define what are the main trends that will be of concern to young people for the coming years. This policy will have a one-year plan that will indicate what steps and actions are required to implement, and this policy will be approved and budgeted by the council next year," says Artashes Torozyan, project director.

Target groups of the "Youth for their future" sub-grant project are young people from Goris community, the local government and educational institutions. More than 5,000 young people aged 18-30 are participating in the project.

Sona Alaverdyan, a young participant, notes that the main goal of the project is to raise youth activity, raise awareness of community issues and discuss these issues, so this program gives them the opportunity to replace words with actions.

Another participant, Mariam Gyurjyan, says that in the small community, each project has its own impact on community development, and during this project young people have the opportunity to talk about their role in the community during focus group discussions.

Generally speaking, the role of young people in the community is great, and there different opinions arise during discussions. As a result of interactive discussions, they focus more on ideas and exchange thoughts with each other," says the young participant.

Here is the video about the project.