THE YOUTH MUST BE MORE ACTIVE
By Aghavni Harutyunian, Translated by L.H.

AZG Armenian Daily
20/09/2007

The youth branch of All-Armenian Congress is one year old

The Association of Youth Organizations of the All-Armenian Congress
was founded on September 17, 2006, announced at a press conference
in Urbat club the Chairman of the Association Atom Mkhitarian and
deputy chairmen Armen Shahbazian and Mariam Martirosian.

According to Atom Mkhitarian, All-Armenian Congress attaches great
importance to the role and importance of the youth. Consequently,
9 youth organizations decided to become members of the Congress and
then united in the Association of the Youth Organizations.

After foundation, the Association made several arrangements, the
biggest was the All-Armenian International Youth Conference held on
July, where 250 representatives of Armenian youth institutions of
25 countries participated. There are lots of resonances after the
conference, and several youth organizations expressed a wish to be
admitted into the Association.

What about the future plans, the Association of the Youth Organizations
will first of all participate in "Days of the All-Armenian Congress
and the Union of Russia’s Armenians in Armenia and Artsakh – 2007"
program. Besides, it’s planned to hold an Armenian-Georgian dialogue
conference till the end of this year to discuss issues and urgent
problems of the youth.

Deputy Chairwoman of the Association Mariam Martirosian presented the
results of the recent visit to Stavropol. The visit, at the invitation
of the Armenian Youth Organization of Stavropol, gave an opportunity
to participate at the 10th Anniversary of our diocese in South Russia,
then to meet the Armenian youth of Stavropol, Krasnodar and Rostov,
and to discuss the issue of foundation of an All-Russian youth
institution under the patronage of the Union of the Russia’s Armenians.

Armen Shahbazian presented the situation connected with the youth of
Diaspora. Mainly, according to him, though the young people come to
Armenia to gain higher education, but if before they wanted to stay,
at present they return to their countries. It’s also an issue of the
Association’s agenda, like another issue connected with the discussion
of possible ways to cooperate with the Georgian youth.

To the question of "Azg" daily if the issue is not pretentious taking
into account the peculiarity of the Armenian-Georgian relations and
issues, Atom Mkhitarian clarified that there would not be difficulties
for the youth as in the frameworks of different international events
it became evident that the Georgian youth was also interested in the
realization of Armenian-Georgian dialogue.

To the question of the journalists why young people in Armenia are
not aware of the youth organizations or they don’t resort to the
help of those institutions, Mr. Mkhitarian presented the results of
a statistics carried out one and a half year ago. According to it,
the young people in Armenia are more than 800 thousand and the number
of the registered youth NGOs is not comparable with that number. At
the other hand, according to various sources, the active part of the
Armenian youth is only 1-1,5 % of it, while this index in Eastern
European countries is about 20 to 25 %, and, for example, in Denmark
– 80%.

Nevertheless, the Association of Youth Organizations of the
All-Armenian Congress plans to touch upon the issues of the youth,
to carry out different new programs, to have branches in several
provinces of Armenia and widen its membership.