Environmental research

One of the biggest challenges concerning our youth is the growing problem of drug and alcohol abuse among them.. This is a very huge concern for us given that nearly 60% of our total population is under the age group of 20. It is a priority therefore to ensure that right interventions are made to educate, prevent and rehabilitate young people to address this issue. YDF s program, drug education, prevention and rehabilitation was started in 2005 as a small drop in center in Thimphu to address this issue. Over the time, the problem grew even larger and today under this program we run two drop in centers and two rehabilitation centers for men and women. The rehabilitation center is located in a rented facility which is now also proving to be inadequate. The plan to build a bigger and amore purposeful facility in a community that is an hour s drive from Thimpu is under way at the YDF. To complement the facilities at the rehabilitation this proposal is made to establish an egg tray manufacturing plant in the premises of the center on a co -finance basis. Considering the fact that YDF already has motivated recovering addicts, established recovery centres, organizational capacity and wide stretch of land, establishment of a project on Egg Tray Manufacturing Plant is expected to achieve the following outcomes; conserving the biodiversity, managing waste, creating employment to recovered youth. It is a very noble approach to dealing with both the youth employment and waste management issues. Today, as Bhutan experiences several major changes, some of the key challenges faced are as follows 1. Waste generation, composition and management particularly in the urban areas 2. Youth Unemployment 3. Substance abuse and alcohol issue among the youth 4. Funds constraints for the drug related programs 5. Stigmatization and discrimination towards the addicts and alcoholics by the society at large 6. Rupee crisis due to imbalance in the import and export-import from India exceeds the export from Bhutan to India.

Bhutan