“Through the implementation of the project, young people will think about the importance of volunteering, develop critical thinking, the art of argumentation, and project writing skills. As a result of the held tournament, positions will be formed on how we can take care of the development of volunteering”.
Giorgi Tsakiashvili – trainer, founder of “Professio”.
I considered volunteering to be very important since childhood, selflessly standing by, supporting, and caring for others constantly raised me and developed many skills. Along with that, I learned and developed as a professional while volunteering, one clear example of which was the debate program where I volunteered over the years and accumulated a lot of social capital in the form of friends, acquaintances, information, and knowledge.
Over the years, I have carried out various activities in Rustavi with the support of “Sika – Georgian Association of Educational Initiatives” and now by the “Professio – Personal and Professional Center” of the social space. I have been a debater since 1998 and participated in many debate tournaments, as a player and then as an organizer. In 2021, I created an authoring program for the leaders of the debate club, which was piloted and ended successfully. I am always willing to share my knowledge and experience in debating and informal club management with others. Accordingly, as soon as the opportunity appeared, I decided to participate in the competition and volunteer to help create school debate clubs in 8 schools in Rustavi.
The goal of the project is to create 8 debate clubs in Rustavi schools on a volunteer basis, which will be functional and will take care of the development of skills for club members, where school students will teach each other and share knowledge and experience based on the principle of peer education. Members of the debate club will develop such skills as project planning, critical thinking, argumentative reasoning, ability to find and process information, listening culture, quick thinking, teamwork, public speaking ability, etc.
It should be noted that the social space “Professio”, which was created in Rustavi about a year ago, is a prerequisite for the implementation of the above-mentioned activities. including both intellectual, cognitive, and educational, as well as related to art, culture, and creativity. In the profession, weekly events related to music are held, board games are organized, meetings with public figures are held, trainings are organized, etc. In this case, the training for the project will be carried out in the profession, and the participants will be able to constantly gather in the profession and discuss the issues that are relevant to them.
The victory in the competition is a motivation that contributes to the implementation of the project on the one hand, and on the other hand, to the introduction and development of the culture of volunteering for the youth of Rustaveli based on the principle of peer education. The project allows us to carry out activities directly in schools, which to a certain extent will bring more popularity and awareness to the profession.
