OSCE Office opens training centre to help reduce unemployment in Armenia

YEREVAN, 6 September 2006 - Reducing unemployment in Armenia's Ararat province is the aim of a training Centre that opened in the village of Zorak today.

Supported by the OSCE Office in Yerevan and financed by the Italian Government, the Centre will be run by the local non-governmental organization Agrari Farmers' Union. It will provide computer and Internet classes, offer entrepreneurship training, courses on the fight against corruption and civic education, and host a library with books on human rights, elections, the basics of small business and anti-corruption issues.

"The Centre will help reduce poverty in the area and help refugees and other vulnerable local residents integrate in a rapidly developing job market," said Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan. "This initiative also contributes to the implementation of the Armenian Government's rural poverty eradication programme."

The Centre will serve the villages of Zorak, Hayanist, Nizami, Sayat-Nova and Demirchi.