Georgia: Education and practical skills

To support Georgian youth CSOs in their efforts to human rights promotion and protection, People in Need Georgia launched a project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Czech Republic) TRANSITION Programme. The project supports civil society organizations of Gori and Senaki Municipalities in promoting civic education and human rights awareness using the power of documentaries to draw new landscapes of human rights awareness together with youth and disadvantaged population. The project is implemented by People in Need Georgia in partnership with Human Right Academy.

A major obstacle to implementing more productive agriculture practices in Georgia is the gap in current farmers’ knowledge and lack of attractiveness of agribusiness-related professions among the educated youth. Current low productivity is also partially caused by a mismatch between labour market need and education provision. Therefore, People in Need focuses on establishing and strengthening partnerships between VET (Vocational Education and Training) providers, the private agribusiness sector and other social and government partners.

In addition, the VET monitoring toolkit is being developed. The toolkit enables stakeholders participating in the coordination platform to monitor themselves changes in labour market needs. It is based on an analysis of the current agriculture VET provision through formal, non-formal and informal channels, farmer knowledge needs and a mapping of labour market needs in the agribusiness sector to identify mismatches.

People in Need works in close collaboration with the Information and Consultation Centre (ICC) to pilot apprenticeships schemes in commercial farms and promote other practical learning opportunities. Also, the organization pilots and tests a system of information messages and practical instruction videos for farmers.
The aim of the project, besides other things, is to promote positive role models in commercial farms and to make an agribusiness more attractive among school leavers, unemployed, farmers and rural population.

People in Need implemented educational projects in Georgia since 2011, focusing on cooperation with schools and on the delivery of attractive methods of teaching human rights issues. The projects were designed to contribute to increased awareness of human rights among the Georgian youth and to their more active involvement in social debate on human rights and their promotion.

PIN Georgia used and developed PIN’s One World in Schools educational programme, which had originally started in Czech Republic in 2001. The One World in Schools methodology combines documentary films, other audiovisual aids and follow up activities and helps teachers to teach more effectively about complex social topics, such as human rights, democracy values, and conflict mediation or prevention.

To date, the methodology is used by more than 300 teachers from more than 130 schools all over Georgia. The organization People in Need closely cooperated with the Ministry of Education and Science and its Teachers Professional Development Centre. As a result of this cooperation, the One World in Schools methodology was included into the official curriculum of social science teachers’ professional development and consequently became available to all Georgian social science teachers.

Handing over the methodology to local partners, People in Need assisted with development of new educational toolkits (DVDs with films & teachers handbooks) and provided continuous support to the teachers and students (study visits, conferences, regular consultations).