The presentation of Armenian Caritas program “Migration and Development -2” took place on May 17.
The program suggests a new approach to the migration problems in Armenia creating relations between migration and development. It also has a goal to decrease the high rate of migration from those communities of Armenia where the rate of poverty is the highest.

The presentation of Armenian Caritas program “Migration and Development -2” took place on May 17.
The program suggests a new approach to the migration problems in Armenia creating relations between migration and development. It also has a goal to decrease the high rate of migration from those communities of Armenia where the rate of poverty is the highest.
The board member of Armenian Caritas BNGO Don Grigor Mkrtchyan greeted everybody with welcome speech. He expressed his gratitude to the program partners – Caritas Austria and Government of Lichtenstein.
Emphasizing the growing sizes of migration executive director of Armenian Caritas Anahit Mkhoyan in her speech addressed to the organizations acting in this field encouraging them to cooperate and join efforts for supporting our returning citizens and somehow to decrease the rate of migration. A. Mkhoyan mentioned that foreign donors support us by providing funds, but state and public actors of our country must be the first persons whom this problem must concern.
The program manager of «Migration and development» Tigranuhi Tarakhchyan presented the summary description of the program’s first phase, according to which through different activities the program supported 190 RA citizens returned from EU during 2010-2013. The program raised the awareness about migration risks among 600 youths and supported nearly 150 young unemployed to get new skills and abilities correspondent to the labor market demands.
Returning beneficiaries were provided with legal, material, business and other support. T. Tarakhchyan said that one of peculiarities of Armenian Caritas is that it serves citizens of Armenia, who had left the country trying to find safe and better live in abroad, but unfortunately they have returned without anything. She called those years lost years.

New components of the program «Migration and development-2» were also presented which are the following: besides supporting the returnees from EU countries, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, it also will provide assistance to the population of the communities having high rate of migration and to young people who have innovative business initiatives