Training in Georgia

Youth in Action 3.1 Training course “Short-term Vulunteering for Civil Society” took place in hotel Diana in Kobuleti, Georgia, June 17-25, 2014. It was implemented by the Georgian NGO Young Socialists of Georgia with three facilitators: Maria Kopelyan, Samet Firat Soydemir and Giorgi Kanchaveli. The main problem addressed was the low level of youth activism in Eastern Europe and Caucasus. The main points were: more active inclusion of young people into Civil Society that might be beneficiary to young people, to Civil Society and to the countries in general; promotion of volunteering activities and for this establishing of a network of organisations involved in short-term (up to two months) volunteering of the young people in different NGOs around Eastern Europe and Caucasus. The TC included the participants from Civil Society, Human Rights, Youth and Volunteer NGOs from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

This training for the representatives of youth and student NGOs from these countries helped to establish good connections between the young people from these countries, to transfer the good practice in the field of youth work, cultural diversity and social inclusion. During the TC the participants were given space to create their future projects related to short-term volunteering, to establish informal contacts necessary to this task. Using the methods of non-formal education the values of European Citizenship, Human Rights, Respect to Diversity, Democracy were explained to the participants. Some special activities were dedicated to different ways of volunteering, networking, fundraising.