Press Release Bratislava, 5 June 2008 – The majority of young people deem it to be important to have the possibility to leisure activities in their town or municipality. However, the leisure or youth centres designated for young people are attended by 30% of young people only, predominantly by teenagers. The local governments consider both the lack of finances and the shortage of trained youth educationalists to be the greatest problem of preparing an attractive offer to young people. This follows from a representative survey of public opinion conducted by GfK Slovakia in May of this year; 1,000 young people between the ages of 14 – 30 and 200 representatives of local governments were polled. Three quarters of young people make use of other opportunities to spend their leisure time as offered through various umbrella bodies. Almost all young people would like to attend leisure time activities at the place of their permanent residence. From this point of view it is obvious that the present offer is not attractive for young people, and they spend their time and energy in other activities.Young people would mostly appreciate the establishment of sports fields in their towns or municipalities, the possibility to travel, to participate in programmes of international cooperation, they also would like to attend various educational clubs. Representatives of local governments have an eminent interest in organizing activities and undertakings for youth. According to their statements, they are able to offer them various sport undertakings and sports fields, subsequently they can imagine organizing sport and cultural activities for them.However, both parties consider a lack of money and the method of financing programmes dealing with work with youth to be the greatest problem. It is interesting that more than one half of all local governments representatives did not know how the state has been providing conditions for the work with youth. Almost one fifth stated that the state was doing nothing in this matter.The opinion poll also investigated where, according to the opinion of both parties, it is possible to find funds to finance programmes for youth. Almost two fifths of young people see the funds from the European Union to be the main possible source of financing the programmes for youth. Grants from the state budget and donations from legal entities and natural persons were mentioned by approximately one fourth of young people.Representatives of local governments have different opinions on financing. The majority of them see the possibility of making use of funds from the budget of municipalities and higher self-government administrative units (local governments). More than one third sees the possibility in funds from the European Union and almost one fourth sees the possibility in grants from the state budget. Approximately every sixth representative of a local government did not know how to finance leisure time activities for young people. Answers to the question 'what assistance from the state budget would be mostly welcomed, the most preferred form stated was grants from the state budget.Another problem specified by both parties was the shortage of people organizing activities for young people. In this area, the representatives of local governments would also welcome assistance from the state, namely in the form of increasing the skills of these people by means of educational programmes, trainings, seminars or short-term attachments. The opinion poll also discovered a possible potential in youth volunteer work, because one sixth of young people stated that they were interested in the work of a volunteer working with young people.The opinion poll was conducted in May of this year in the form of a telephone questioning (CATI) of a representative sample of 1,000 young people between the ages of 14 – 30 and 200 representatives of local governments. The poll examined the work with young people in Slovakia, the attitude of local governments towards young people and barriers of cooperation with young people. The poll also dealt with the possibility of financially supporting the cooperation with young people, and was interested in the opinion of young people and representatives of local governments regarding ensuring the conditions of work with young people by the state. The opinion research also polled the opinion of young people regarding the work of a volunteer in their town or municipality.