Youth Bank.......................

I have just returned from a 5 day training at a hotel outside Tbilisi (the capital), which is about 6 hours away from Zugdidi where we live.The training related to a project sponsored by the Eurasia Foundation known as Youth Bank. The concept originated in 1999 in Northern Ireland and now there are Youth Banks which have been set up all over the world. Here in Georgia interested people between the ages of 16 and 24 completed applications, and each applicant was interviewed by representatives of the Eurasia Foundation. Seven people were then chosen from each of five different socio-economically challenged regions of the country, including Samegrelo, where Zugdidi is located. All 35 Youth Bank members then traveled to Tbilisi for the conference, which was held in a hotel/conference center about 10 km outside of town. I'm sure it was the first time some of the kids had ever been to the capital and the first time that others had ever stayed in a hotel. Some were from minority areas of the Country and barely speak Georgian! They speak Armenian or Azeri instead. The six trainers were from Northern Ireland, and the brogue which some of them had made it difficult to understand them as well!! You can imagine the linguistic nightmare that the training presented, but surprisingly, things went fairly well. There were 3 interpreters in attendence at all times, and the training went from 9:30 each morning to 9:30 each evening, with breaks for meals at the hotel. The Youth Bank concept is that the Youth Bank is given a sum of money which it then disburses to fund small community development projects proposed by other youths from the region. I think the Eurasia Foundation intends to provide initial funding of 7,500 GEL to each of the five Youth Banks being established in Georgia. The training related to the methodology which the Bank's members are to use in soliciting and evaluating project proposals, interviewing applicants, selecting projects to be funded, entering into contracts with successful applicants, and finally, monitoring and evaluating funded projects. The training was very professionally done and was specifically oriented toward the 16-24 year old crowd it was aimed at. For instance, at one point, a film clip of a love scene from a movie was shown. The scene was quite graphic, but no sex was actually depicted. The kids then broke into groups and individually wrote down everything they had seen in the film clip. Of course, most of them said that the couple had had sex. The exercise was intended to to make the point that when an interviewer is reporting to the full board on a project proposal, he is to report only that which he actually observes or which he is told. Interviewers are not supposed to interject their own personal thoughts or conclusions regarding project proposals. If the kids did not see the couple having sex they should not have reported that they did! The training is now over and everyone has gone back to their respective homes across the country. In the upcoming months we will see whether or not the concept of a Youth Bank will work here in Georgia.

*************************************************************************************************************************************

In Georgia, almost everyone has a cell phone (kids included), and among the kids, the kind of cell phone you have is a status symbol. The more bells and whistles the better. At the conference, one kid even had a video cell phone, where each party to the call could see the other person (or anything else the camera was aimed at) in surprisingly good video (both parties had to have similarly equipped phones of course)!!