Abrupt refusal to fund higher education tuition fee for students from Tsalenjikha and Zugdidi municipalities, living in villages along the conflict dividing line caused numerous socio-economic problems for them and their families. The recent emergency report of Fund “Sukhumi” highlights the main challenges caused by the cancellation of the “students grant” on the population, as well as provides specific recommendations to reduce the negative impacts.
The project is implemented with the support of the organization Brot
für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Germany)
It was a round table - presentation on the topic "E-petition in Khoni municipality". The meeting, held in the City Council of Khoni, was attended by 28 participants: representatives of local government and civil sector. Participants were provided with information on the results of the project “A common forum for CSOs from Guria, Imereti and Racha-Lechkhumi for PAR Roadmap monitoring”.
One of the successful results of the project is the creation and implementation of an electronic petition system. The speakers talked about the information campaign carried out in 12 administrative units of Khoni municipality, as well as about the e-petitions presented on behalf of the communities and the process of challenging the petitions by the local government.
Terjola working group has achieved number of successes. At the beginning of the project, a lot was done, and mainly these activities were underlined during the round table. The meeting was attended by representatives of the City Hall and the City Council, teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers.
The participants of the meeting saw well what the working group has done over the last period. Talked about the second local needs research, which has been finished and will soon receive the form of publication. There was also a presentation of local civil society organizations and it was noted that they were especially activated within the framework of the project.
Particular attention was paid to the issue of civil budgeting - now the document is in the process of development, it will soon be posted on the web page and citizens will have the opportunity to record their ideas and project applications on this platform.
“New visions in the process of public administration reform for the introduction of population needs assessment” - a round table on this topic was held in Vani. Representatives of local self-government and civil sector were actively involved in the meeting. The participants were provided with information on population’s needs assessment and developed the recommendations. They got acquainted with the work of civil society organizations registered in Vani in terms of informing the population about public administration reform. There was also a presentation of Vani working group, its structure and results.
The meeting was held on the background of active discussions. The participants mentioned the reasons that hinder the use of e-services. This is mainly a low information level and lack of proper skills.
The work is carried out in the framework of the project “A common forum for CSOs from Guria, Imereti and Racha-Lechkhumi for PAR Roadmap monitoring”.
Despite the nihilistic attitude towards the elections, the meeting participants expressed great interest to the initiative of the Fund "Sukhumi". The initiative is unusual and original - this is an online platform for elections to local self-government in Zugdidi, which will provide the voter with will give the voter information about the positions of political actors and other issues.
Members of the women initiative group started meetings with voters in different communities of Zugdidi municipality. They introduced the meeting participants to the online platform. The first meetings were held on June 24-29 in the building of the Kakhati tea factory, the IDP settlement, in the community center of Khurcha and individually with the rural population. The meetings, envisaging the pandemic mode, were held in small groups.
On June 27-29, a training on “Gender Sensitive Local Social Policy” was held in Borjomi.
The training was attended by representatives of 10 municipalities of Western Georgia (Senaki, Zugdidi, Terjola, Tsalenjikha, Kobuleti, Samtredia, Vani, Bagdati, Tkibuli, Chokhatauri). The following issues were discussed: violence against women and domestic violence, as well as gender policy and local gender needs. Practical work – elaboration of model action plan and their presentation was carried out.
On the last day, representatives of Zugdidi, Chokhatauri, Senaki and Bagdati municipalities exchanged the best practices, experience, innovative programs in social directions, as well as in the field of health care, violence prevention and victims assistance.
Meetings of the mixed-type were held with youth groups in June. 5 trainings were held in the first half of the month, the other five - in the second half.
An offline meeting was held in Samtredia - the participants were actively involved in the discussion, role - games.
There was no possibility of such activity, but online trainings with youth groups formed in Senaki, Vani, Terjola and Chokhatauri.
The trainings were interesting for the youth audience. The following topics were discussed: conflict management, reasons of domestic violence and protection mechanisms, types and forms of bullying.
There was a good trend in the groups: participants spoke by their own examples, analyzed situations and made the right conclusions.
How to turn the ideas into reality, how to plan project activities - a training on these issues was held in Kutaisi. It was attended by members of the youth initiative group of Senaki, Zugdidi, Tsalenjikha, Kutaisi, Tskaltubo and Khoni.
After getting acquainted with the theoretical materials, the groups worked on the creation of the project. The information and skills obtained during the training will help the youth group in writing working versions of the project and timely submit them to the competition committee.
The project is implemented with the support of the USAID
The Forum of civil society organizations was held in Kutaisi.
The meeting was attended by 16 civil society organizations registered in Khoni, Vani, terjola, Bagdati, Lanchkhuti, Ozurgeti, Tsageri and Ambrolauri municipalities.
During the meeting, a small analysis of the results of the second needs assessment research was made according to the municipalities.
The results of the second local needs research were analyzed according the municipalities. A comparison was made with the previous research, to see what dynamics are observed at this stage, what results are obtained and what challenges remain.
It was underlined that information level among the population about public administration reform has increased in all municipalities, accordingly the statistics on the use of e-services has also increased. Working groups set up in 8 municipalities make a great contribution to all this.
The work is carried out in the framework of the project “A common forum for CSOs from Guria, Imereti and Racha-Lechkhumi for PAR Roadmap monitoring”.
