International training in Georgia "EVS -Every Volunteer Secure"

Training in Georgia by intern from the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague

The training course „EVS – Every Volunteer Secure“ was carried out in Georgia, between 28th February – 6th March 2016, organized with support of Erasmus+ program. International Educational Centre GEMS has sent 6 participants from Czech Republic. This project was targeted mostly at newly accredited and experienced EVS organizations from Program and EECA countries. The training took place in a georgian city Rustavi, where 30 participants, from 14 organisation and 10 countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Armenia, Georgia, Portugal, Greece, Ukraine, Latvia, Macedonia and Italy) gathered. Thanks to cooperation of hosting organisation Georgian Youth for Europe and coordinating organisation IEC GEMS, all this could happen. The aim of the training was to increase the knowledge of newly accredited hosting EVS organisations, to build partnerships among organisations for future projects and to share experience together. We discussed the need and value of volunteering in our society, what served as a basis for future cooperation of Program and EECA countries. The last day of the training, representatives of each organisation presented new ideas about future projects. Six days of agenda were filled with activities of non-formal learning. From the very first moment, as we got out of the airport in Tbilisi, we found ourselves in a different world. By Marshutka (georgian minibus) we got to a nearby city called Rustavi. Impressed by sunny weather and georgian hospitality we slowly started to get to know our schedule of following days. After few get-to-know-each-other activities, we started a serious agenda of our training. Our trainers Sasha and Aleks were leading us all 6 days. Individually and also in groups we discussed the roles in EVS – role of volunteer, mentor, supervisor, hosting, sending and coordinating organisation. We shared our experience with EVS and learned from each other’s stories and mistakes. Those, more experienced were sharing their knowledge from many years of work with international projects. Although, imporatnt part of the training was also exploring the culture of the hosting country. Therefore, on the 4th day of project, we travelled to Tbilisi. Each group of participants obtained a list of tasks, that we had to accomplish in few hours. As a result, we saw beautiful sights, view over the city, took a local ropeway, learnt georgian dances and songs. The highlight of the day was typical georgian „supra“, where we got to know georgian table manners firsthand. As I mentioned above, the last day of the training was dedicated to our own initiative projects. We, participants from IEC GEMS, came up with an ecological project (youth exchange), that was highly appreciated by other organizations. At this point we understood, that it’s our responsibility to make it happen in near future. The project itself and the culture of the hosting country really helped us to broaden our horizons and gave us a lot of positive motivation to continue in our activities. By this, we would like to thank the organisers for giving us the opportunity to participate in such training. Currently, we are starting new activities, to fulfill what we agreed on in Georgia. On behalf of IEC GEMS team Barbora Nosková

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