On February 18-19, a two-day training was held with representatives of local self-governments of Imereti, Samegrelo, Guria and Adjara. The issue of the strategy of gender equality, organizational, technical and methodological aspects of the municipality was discussed on the first day. The second day was devoted to the development of municipality action plans.

The training participants had interesting presentations on the approaches existing in the municipalities, successful practices and challenges.

“A very necessary project”, “You are really doing a big job”, “Training on these issues, should take place throughout Georgia”, “I am ready to cooperate”, “The conflict expert is already working in a second circle in our school. “Our school is always open for you", "Thank you very much for the work done", "We are waiting for you in Chokhatauri municipality, we promise to work actively"," We follow your work, and are delighted with your young people"- these and similar considerations were expressed or recorded in a chat during a meeting on the Zoom platform.

What has been done, what results have we achieved, how have we overcome the challenges, what are the prospects for future work? These questions were answered at a international seminar held on the Zoom Platform on February 17. The seminar was attended by people involved in the project "Online Vote-O-Meter for 2020 Georgian Parliamentary Elections". These were the representatives of the Fund "Sukhumi" and experts from the Visegrad countries: Klara Cozlova (Czech Republic), Katarzyna Zielińska (Poland) and Peter Guran (Slovakia).

These were several hours of active work: sharing experiences, talking about lessons learned, and developing strategies for future activities.

The fruitful cooperation between the civil sector and the local government of Tsageri municipality continues. Effective steps were taken. The third stage of monitoring of the roadmap for public administration reform. The local authorities offer more inclusion to the population, since the opinions of the residents of the municipality are prior for them.

Two civil society organizations actively work in Tsageri: “Active Citizen - Accountable Government” and “Tsageri Center for Women's Rights and Equality”.

News Agency “Regionuli Kvira” (Regional Week) reflects the activities of the project “A common forum for CSOs from Guria, Imereti and Racha-Lechkhumi for PAR Roadmap monitoring”.

“Schools against challenges of gender equality, gender stereotypes and domestic violence” - a new publication - this publication was prepared by the monitoring and advocacy group of the Fund “Sukhumi” last year. It reflects the results of a research, carried out in 11 municipalities of Western Georgia.  Active work is underway to implement targeted policies in schools against gender stereotypes.

In this process, our partner is the newspaper "New Education", which has been published once a week since 1998, and is distributed among subscribers - in schools and universities of Georgia, as well as in government and non-government organizations working in the field of education. An even wider audience is covered by the online version of the newspaper.

“Involving parents in school life - cooperation in activities against gender stereotypes and violence” - a meeting of round format was held on this topic. Among the participants there were students, parents, teachers, representatives of different spheres of society.

They got acquainted with the publication of the Fund "Sukhumi" - “Schools against challenges of gender equality, gender stereotypes and domestic violence”. They talked about the dangers of gender discrimination, about cooperation between teachers and parents in terms of protecting young people from violence. They touched upon the problems caused by the covid-19 pandemic and their solutions. The discussed issues were relevant for all participants, and the meeting was active. Information about the round table was published in the newspaper "New Education".

I learned, I understood, I realized, now I can - these are the words of adolescents after our workshops.

These words express changes in their character, behavior, attitudes.

That was our goal: to teach these girls and boys...

"Teaching Conflict Management in Schools" - this is the name of the methodology, with which Larisa (Lela) Shengelia, conflict expert of the Fund “Sukhumi” is guided.

The rule is following: a group of 10-15 students is selected at school - mostly seventh-ninth graders. A workshop is held with the group once a month on various topics: what is conflict, stages of conflict, conflict resolution at an early stage, etc.

“Equality Now” and “Civic Spectrum - Equality” - these civil society organizations from Bagdati attended an online meeting regarding the objectives of the third monitoring of public administration reform. The meeting identified the accents that should be highlighted during monitoring. Also reviewed the questionnaire and assigned responsibilities. It was noted that monitoring helps to initiate changes in the municipality.

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.

This is the first successful result of cooperation with Kobuleti local self-government!

It all started like this:

The Fund "Sukhumi" has been cooperating with the Gender Equality Councils of local self-governments since the day of their creation. Kobuleti municipality was included in this list in 2019. It was the only one, out of 11 municipalities, that did not have a single program to assist violence victims.

The advocacy and monitoring group and Tbilisi representative office of the Fund "Sukhumi" started active work to develop the program.

They are already leaders, as they conduct the activities  of Women Support Centers in 11 municipalities. They attended many trainings, but teaching and learning is never superfluous. Therefore, a two-day training was held for the mobilizers of the Women Support Centers, where they discussed topical topics: the phenomenon of leadership, civic activism, advocacy strategy.

The online space has become a platform for the participants to share their knowledge and information. They saw leadership, teamwork and advocacy issues in a new prism.