Gvantsa Akiashvili, the author of the volunteer initiative “Bloggers from Zemo Racha”:

Volunteering means …

Taking responsibility for your own world without obligation. It is a superpower to be free from external restraining factors and to take a step forward to express your willingness to care for other people. A volunteer initiates a two-way process in which all involved parties win. If we can give our time, knowledge, experience, or just a good mood and hope to someone else, we are making a better life for him/her, which is an amazing feeling.

My first volunteering experience:

Our most sincere volunteerism begins in our childhood when we express willingness to help family members through their activities. There are special feelings that make us happy. The main thing is that this readiness is not extinguished with growth. As part of civic initiatives, my first volunteering experience relates to breaking down stereotypes among people of different ethnicities.

Being volunteers we can:

Create a very big impulse in society. For particularly vulnerable groups we can create a sense of unity and sympathy, a desire to become active, a hope. Most importantly, this impulse is contagious and can have a greater impact and significance than we imagined.

The best volunteer campaign/the best volunteer:

My sister Lela Akiashvili is the best volunteer for me. From school age, she discovered this superpower, made the decision to be willing to help someone else and since then she confidently supports the people who need help most of all. During the war of 2008, she volunteered to go to the IDP camp. Her motivation was contagious to me too. Also, people who creatively take on a variety of problems (e.g., instead of receiving their own birthday presents, do something good) and find a way to show others that we can all help are role models for me!