Participation in Civic Education Program for me started in May 2011 when we established civics club Pirveli in Batumi Ilia Chavchavadze public school №1. We created a space where each of us could benefit from non-formal education.
After the end of the lessons, we met in the premises of civics club where we talked about interesting initiatives, legislation, law and just simple daily issues of concern. In the framework of the Civic Education Program I attended trainings and seminars on trafficking, conflict resolution, human rights, advocacy, tolerance and civic activism.
You may agree with me that about eight years ago, for me as a 10th grade student, receiving such information, analysing and formulating healthy attitude on very important issues help me to become responsible and lawful citizen. If we talk about myself and my responsibilities as the civics club leader the most difficult was selection of the civics club members and supporting them to increase their motivation.
Only through debates and discussions we could not generate enough interest among peers, so I decided to take part in the mini-grants contest announced by the Civic Education project, which doubled our writing, management and team working skills. We won. A new stage has been launched. That time, the activities for similar projects included only distribution of sweets, clothes and making of smiley photos. Of course, our team was far from such an approach, excluding smiley photos because we thought that for a long-term such perspective would be ineffective.
Before the start of the project we were in Urekhi Children’s House, where we asked them what would be better in the above-mentioned situation. They showed great interest in sports activities. It was important to introduce a healthy lifestyle, which we included in the training component that involved human rights, tolerance, civic responsibility and the importance of education. The project was financed by $ 450. It should be mentioned that The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Adjara has contributed the overall project budget by providing Batumi Sports Center Hall free of charge as well as sports referees. It was a successful project that made the club members more friendly and more goal oriented. The support provided by project United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and PH International in the field of development of civic education is valuable, as well as all the participating organizations who are involved in this process. Experience gained through the civic engagement helped me on my way as a citizen, as well on my way to carrier as a journalist of TV program Hashtag on TV & Radio company public broadcaster Adjara.
For the formation of active citizen, it is important to provide more information for students about their rights. It is necessary that the citizen should not be distant from the daily life and should be keeping in mind that government is accountable to its citizens. I recommend to all students to attend civics club meetings, be more active, write social projects focused on social issues, take care of the environment protection. I believe that many bureaucratic mechanisms will meet you, including invoices, and many things that can cause you to lose your motivation but do not give up, because these processes will support you to be good citizen which positively affects your future.
