My idea is to create a two-month academy for schoolchildren with no experience to learn and apply skills that encourage and improve their volunteering abilities. – Lizi Begheladze, co-founder and project manager of the “Youth for Zestafon” initiative group.
Despite the many social problems in Zestafoni municipality, there is virtually no group of activists advocating for the population due to low awareness and information gaps. Local voluntary groups need to develop skills and increase their competence to bring about positive changes.
In 2022, my friends and I created the “Youth for Zestafoni” initiative group based on volunteering. It is the first community organization in the city and has accumulated a lot of theoretical and practical experience. The group comprises six co-founders and ten volunteers. At the initial stage, we underwent complex training offered by UNFPA and “Imereti Development Center” focused on the specifics of working on social issues: “Youth for Social Changes”. We strive to improve our qualifications every day and now receive small grants, work, and cooperate with non-governmental and governmental bodies, putting all our resources into developing the community.
The main motivation for starting the project was to discover potential new team members. Young people from Zestafoni have less interest in volunteering, and the internal migration and outflow of youth capital from the city is a significant problem. Therefore, it is challenging not only to find experienced staff to accept new members but also to find interested young people for the volunteer club.
To address these problems, I decided to participate in a competition aimed at creating socialization opportunities for young people and diversity in youth life in my community. My idea was to create a two-month camp-type academy where schoolchildren with no experience could learn and apply all the skills to encourage and improve the quality of their volunteering. As there is a shortage of experienced staff in the city, the academy will help discover talent and potential in newcomers to train them into experienced staff and active citizens. After the academy, volunteers will potentially become members of an initiative group or other active volunteer clubs, demonstrating the sustainability of the project.
The goal of the initiative is to create a sustainable communication network for volunteers, encourage volunteering and social activism from school age, promote the discovery of talent and potential, train and develop young people to become competent personnel for the development of their own community, prevent internal migration, spread non-formal education and promote the Volunteer platform. The project envisages sustainability, which is manifested by the fact that the city will receive intellectual capital, with 40 young volunteers/activists fully equipped with knowledge and skills that will help bring about real positive changes in their own community.
