KUALA LUMPUR: Youth groups will receive grants directly from the Youth and Sports Ministry instead of having to apply for funding.

The new policy was among three new initiatives announced at the National Youth Day celebrations yesterday.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who officiated at the event at Stadium Putra in Bukit Jalil, said lively, happy, clever and capable youth were the building blocks needed to ensure the country's progress.

"Whatever field you are in, be it education, sports or entertainment, you must strive to be the best and brightest," he told the 15,000 gathered at the indoor stadium.

He promised to continue working towards making Malaysia a better place for youth, so that every young person would feel that "it is great to be young in Malaysia".
At a press conference later, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that effective June 1, the grants would be directly given to the 4,000-odd registered grassroots level youth groups in the country.

"We will give them RM3,000 per year. If that is not enough, they can apply for more."

Ismail said the current procedure was for the organisations to apply through their respective district youth offices, which in turn had to go to the state governments for funding below RM10,000 and federal government for anything more.

"The process takes months, which demoralises applicants."

Besides that, said Ismail, a new arm called Rakan Cyber, would be added to the seven others in Rakan Muda soon.

One of the main reasons was to reach out to the new generation through cyberspace - a sphere in which the Barisan Nasional government has admitted it was lagging behind.

"A lot of blogs these days paint a negative picture. That's why we are coming up with these positive blogs," he said.

In order to have a wider reach, the ministry would set up cyber centres in rural areas, so that those without computers and Internet access would be able to go online as well.

Ismail also said that all major events organised by the ministry would be subjected to a post-mortem by the Youth Development Research Institute.