“Free Citizen” Civic Initiatives Support Center and Public Movement Multinational Georgia in partnership with People in Need (Czech Republic) and SALTO Youth Eastern Europe and Caucasus Resource (Poland) are continuing the implementation of the project “Young Activist” Young Civic Activists Capacity Building in Social Campaigning. The project is financed by the International Visegrad Fund (IVF, Bratislava, Slovakia) and Netherlands Government.
On 27 June 2017 Public Movement Multinational Georgia organised the workshop for the local youth in the framework of the Project in the city of Ninotsminda, Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia, with wide spread Armenian ethnic minority. This is the second of the 5 workshops, which were planned to organize in Georgia in the framework of the Project “Young Activist”. The workshops are dedicated to raising awareness among participants on the European Union, Council of Europe, Eastern Partnership, and Visegrad 4 format, as well as providing general information about campaigning, including social media, public speaking and debating, and other relevant topics.
20 young civic activists from all over the Samtskhe-Javakheti region participated in the workshop.
During the workshop it was also discussed the following issues, which have been identified by the participants as more relevant for the Youth of their region:
- Low level of civic engagement of youth, especially those living in the villages;
- Low level of general education, especially teaching of the Georgian language;
- Language barrier (poor knowledge of the Georgian language by ethnic minority youth);
- Absence of playground for kids;
- Ecological and pollution problems;
- Early marriage;
- Vulnerability of the local population to fake news, including those in regard to European integration, Russian propaganda, etc.
