On December 3, 2018, Ararat Alikhanyan, coordinator of Tavush region World Vision Armenia youth programs had a meeting with YSU Ijevan Branch students.
During the meeting A. Alikhanyan presented the “The Young: partner of Self-Governing Bodies” program to the students, which is implemented by the World Vision Armenia Ijevan Office in partnership with Ijevan municipality. It was underlined that the project became possible due to the EU project “For Youth, Skills for the Future” (2018-2020), implemented by the European Union in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine.
It was noted that the capabilities and knowledge of about 15 young people would be strengthened within the framework of the project in the spheres of advocacy, needs assessment and surveys, community planning and implementation, mechanisms in the decision-making process.
It was noted that the participation of young people in the decision-making process of the local self-governing bodies is low, confirmed by the results of the online survey on Facebook social network. 41.3% of the respondents think that the young does not participate and does not attach importance to decision-making at the community level, as he is not aware of the activities of local self-governing bodies. 29.3% of the respondents think that youth does not have the skills and knowledge necessary to work in partnership with local self-governing bodies and implement civic initiatives. The main problem is the ignorance of young people about the work of local self-governing bodies.
Alikhanyan underlined that the project participants would get necessary skills and knowledge on identifying community-citizen issues and strategies of solving problems, work with the council and develop a package of proposals for the Municipality of Ijevan for financing youth initiatives by the budget of Ijevan community. The program also complies with the RA State Youth Policy Strategy, which sets the factor of youth participation at social, civil and other levels as a priority.
WW Tavush Region Youth Program Coordinator added that the program was in line with the development program of Ijevan community of 2017-2021: a five-year program whose main goal is to activate the participation of residents in local self-governance through the introduction of new methods and forms of participation and gradual development.
The capacity development trainings will soon be launched for the newly formed group.
