From July 10 to July 20 - Khurcha, Koki, Shamgona, Ingiri (Zugdidi Municipality) - these villages were covered by meetings for the introduction of the Voters’ Advice Application, which were held by members of the Fund “Sukhumi” Women Initiative Group.
The meetings were attended by citizens of different age categories in small groups. They expressed interest towards the novation envisaged by the project, established active feedback and highlighted the issues that are interesting for political parties. Migration was named as one of the most acute problems.
Online round table was attended by local entities of Tsalenjikha municipality: members of the City Council Gender Equality Council, representatives of local self-government and police, kindergartens and schools, an educational resource center, and medical staff. There was a presentation of the research conducted by the Fund "Sukhumi" on monitoring of services for violence victims. The conversation touched upon important issues: statistics of arresting orders in the area of the municipality, identification of problems, the situation in terms of assistance to the victim...
A member of the Women Peace Coalition – organization “Imedi”, held four meetings in Zugdidi Municipality - mainly in compact settlements for IDPs to inform the voters. The meetings covered the villages of Zugdidi Municipality: Kakhati, Anaklia, Ingiri. The moderators talked about the positive results of using the online application, introduced the instructions for the use of applications and familiarized with the questionnaire developed by the Fund "Sukhumi".
Citizens were interested in the information on the online vote-o-meter. They also presented issues that can be addressed by the municipality. Contact persons have been identified who will meet with citizens again after the launch of the platform.
Three members of Kutaisi youth initiative group took an active part in the training, which was dedicated to project writing. Then they shared their knowledge and information with the rest of the group.
The group has actively worked on two projects that should be presented to the competition committee in the near future. This is their first experience and everyone joined with great enthusiasm.
An information meeting with members of the women initiative group was held online. They named the actual problems of the city, selected the most priority ones and developed an advocacy plan. The group will try to solve the problem, and this will motivate group members to work more actively.
In order to get acquainted with the online application, meetings were held in IDP settlements in the former boarding school of the village Ingiri and Vektori of Zugdidi municipality.
From the side of the IDPs, nihilism and distrust to the elections were noticeable, they were explained that the application is politically neutral. According to them, they never have full information about the programs of political parties, so such application is interesting for them.
The project is implemented with the support of Kvinna till Kvinna,
women’s Foundation (Sweden)
The results of the mini-projects implemented by civil society organizations were summarized at the ordinary meeting of Vani working group. They also discussed the recommendations that were developed for local government with the aim of implementation at the local level of public administration - this mainly concerns the improvement of the skills of citizens and representatives of the City Hall in terms of using e-services.
The meeting highlighted the activities that the group should carry out before the completion of the project, and the responsibility for their implementation was distributed among the members of the group.
Due to the pandemic, informational meetings were held with a limited number of participants in Zugdidi Municipality: IDPs and local citizens of the villages Shamgona and Ingiri and various settlements of the city. The aim of the meeting – familiarization with the online platform – Voters’ Advice Application, which makes the pre-election programs visible and shows the citizen which political entity is closest to his position. The participants of the meeting expressed different attitudes towards the topic of elections, but they were interested in the idea of the application.
Like the previous month, three meetings were held in Khoni in July - one in the youth initiative group and two in the women's groups.
The youth group actively worked on the project, discussed the envisaged activities, considered and worked out all the details, in order to submit to the competition committee for funding.
In women's initiative groups, women talked about many problems that they want to solve, but they do not have such opportunities. At the end, they selected issues that are prior for them and drafted an advocacy plan.
Domestic violence - how open is the society for the discussion of this topic, what prevents the identification of the problem, how informed the population is about the response mechanisms, whom they address when necessary - these issues were discussed during the meetings in Bagdati, Tsalenjikha, Vani and Zugdidi municipalities. When talking about the problem, it was highlighted that the work should be done with the population in terms of identifying families of risk groups and early response.
According to the participants, such meetings will significantly improve the quality of information and will contribute to the prevention of violence.
