During the meeting of of Zugdidi Women Initiative Group, the technical side of the  women's needs research was assessed. Participants talked about how they planned the process of conducting the research, what happened, what problems they faced and what were the obstacles and the contributing factors during the work.

Each speaker spoke with specific examples: about the difficulties of work, about conducting an interview, a dialogue with a respondent. The group members received advice on the basic principles of facilitation and discussed future plans.

The meetings were held in the Women Initiative Groups of Koki / Khurcha and Zugdidi. An online training was held for the third group of Zugdidi municipality - the youth initiative group of Koki - on the topic “Prehistory of Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, its subsequent development and consequences”.

http://fsokhumi.ge/index.php/ka/saqmianoba-ka/mirotvorchestvo/info-ka/treiningi-ka/item/4380-2021-05-22-17-33-21

The project is implemented with the support of the USAID

The newspaper "Khoneli" published an article about the active work in Khoni municipality in the framework of the project “Bridging the Gap: People to People Initiatives for Conflict Resolution”.

There are three initiative groups in Khoni - two women and one youth group. The author of the article is a member of one of the women groups, journalist Guranda Tsaguria, who is actively involved in the work process.

The groups were formed in March, and since then they have been working actively. In May an online training was held for young people on the topic of conflict reasons in Abkhazia. Informational meetings were held with women. The meeting participants talked about needs research - how they planned the work, what turned out to be difficult, etc. This is the first research conducted by women groups. They received good experience and the most important thing is that a document - an assessment of women’s needs will be prepared, as well as recommendations will be developed and presented to local government.

The head of Tbilisi representative office of the Fund “Sukhumi” - Ekaterine Gamakharia has been involved in the High-level Opening Session of the OSCE Conflict Cycle Seminar (Conference), where she, along with the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Anne Linde; Secretary General OSCE, Helga Schmid; Undersecretary of State for Security, the America, Asia and Eastern Policy, Marcin Przydacz and Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia, and America, Miroslav Jenča gave a speech on the “Main challenges and opportunities for inclusive processes and partnered engagement with women’s civil society in the field”.

Ekaterine Gamakharia briefly talked about women’s organization’s role and contribution in peacebuilding in Georgia. She highlighted some favorable factors for women’s participation in the Peace Process. At the same time, she stressed existing challenges and barriers for “meaningful participation” of the women, that requires proper attention and response.

Here is an interesting travel for you. You have never seen or heard of such a thing before.

Traveling online - as it corresponds to Covid pandemic.

Follow us…

The first station –Lanchkhuti official web page http://lanchkhuti.gov.ge/

Take a look to the right of the screen. Everything seems to be familiar in the list, but there is one different name: electronic manager https://lcman.ge/

This is precisely the innovation that we must tell you about - a unique web application that has no analogue in Georgia (and not only). It was created especially for Lanchkhuti. The author of the application is Amiran Gigineishvili - radio engineer, programmer, designer, researcher, economist, PR specialist.

Mr. Amiran is a member of Lanchkhuti City Council and a member of the board of the Local Governments Association of Georgia. He has many years of working experience in civil society organizations, participated in more than 40 trainings in the USA and various European countries. At the moment he is the chairman of the "Georgian Rural Hall" http://www.darbazi.org.ge/

“Prehistory of Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, its subsequent development and consequences” – this topic was discussed at online trainings conducted with the Youth Initiative Groups of Senaki, Tskaltubo and Koki (Zugdidi municipality).

Participants learned what was the prehistory of conflict and how the events were developed. They asked questions: why it was impossible to manage the situation, who was guilty, why did they come to such consequences.

Trainer Keti Vasadze explained to the participants how important the confidence raising is in peacebuilding, what steps should be taken in this direction.

At the end of the trainings, the participants expressed their mood and attitude towards discussed issues:

“It was interesting for me to consider the conflict stages. Peace building always makes sense, I saw the role of youth, we must be involved in building trust. "

Members of Tskaltubo Women Initiative Group were included in the survey process, which was held in different formats. During the group meeting, the participants evaluated the work done. In their opinion, everyone was able to conduct a survey using quantitative and qualitative methods.

In the second part of the meeting, the participants received additional information on how to technically plan, prepare and conduct focus groups and what should be done in order not to lose the main focus during the internal discussion. The types of active and passive participants, the basic principles of facilitation were considered interactively, with specific examples.

Tolerance and conflict - this topic was discussed at the information meeting of the Youth Initiative Group. Through self-presentation, the participants answered the questions: how tolerant I am and what is the degree of my tolerance. During a conversation on specific cases, they noticed that it is difficult to remain tolerant in a conflict situation, it is necessary to apologize, forgive, forget the insult. According to them, any person should feel responsibility, respect others - this will reduce conflict situations in society.

On May 14, another final conference was held online with participation of representatives of local self-government.

The project participants shared the experience gained in the process of implementing the “Voter’s Advice Application” and talked about the introduction and use of a similar platform during future elections.

The guests were actively involved in the discussion and expressed their opinions regarding the importance of the application in terms of informing the population and increasing political trust, as well as the need for its introduction during the elections of local self-government and prospects for the future. They also stressed the importance of cooperating with local media.

Violence victim faces many problems.

It is not a secret that the state can offer only temporary shelter and legal responsibility for the rapist. After leaving the shelter, the victim, with the minor children, is in the hardest situation and the friendship network is vital for her. It gives her a feeling of more or less stability and security.

 The Fund “Sukhumi” has always expressed an idea of ​​multidisciplinary cooperation and coordination in order to respond to the problem of violence against women and domestic violence. Number of round tables, information meetings or civil forums were held, permanently emphasizing proper coordination and consolidation of resources in the field of violence prevention, especially in direction of victim assistance.

The Fund "Sukhumi" has established the following model - a non-formal group is successfully functioning. It is conditionally called the social partners network for victim assistance.

It includes: specialists of social directions of the fund, psychologist, lawyer; social service structures of local self-government, especially the Department for the Protection of Children’s Rights;

Active Citizen – Accountable Government” and Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Centre – are the local partners of the project in Tsageri municipality.

The fund of women entrepreneurs conducted a meeting with representatives of these organizations. The work that will be carried out to assess the needs of the population (questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus groups) was considered.

The organizations started working on small projects under the sub-grants component in May. The meeting also agreed a plan-schedule for the implementation of small projects, according to which monitoring will be carried out.

The project “A common forum for CSOs from Guria, Imereti and Racha-Lechkhumi for PAR Roadmap monitoring” is implemented by the Fund “Sukhumi” in partnership with Imereti Scientists” Union “Spectri” and the Fund of Women Entrepreneurs.

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