Here is a blog post summarizing all the things done in the past 3 months. One third of the EVS is already done and it flew very fast. If the next two thirds will fly this fast it will be a sad situation as only now I start feeling that the adaptation successfully past and Tbilisi feels a more understandable city. What makes time here special is not only the city but the things that I have been doing with the organization.
November
In the beginning of the EVS I had some time to prepare personal goals and get to know the pace of the office work and meeting schedules as well as getting to know the practical bits of life in Tbilisi.
In November I had a great chance to do some research about DRONI and its activities that helped me to host a presentation in front of a delegation of youth work specialists coming from Kyrgyzstan. Alongside with one of the core members of Droni we introduced the organizations, its directions of activity and made initial bonds for future cooperation.
One week of November was the on-arrival training where I got to know other European volunteers that do their service in Georgia or Armenia. Together with them we shared the first impressions of our projects, developed plans and made bonds for meeting up and supporting each other during the week. I have participated in two workshops in the organization on graphic facilitation and on stencil art. Hopefully, more workshops will come, which I could join and boost some skills.
New members of Droni are interested initiating Erasmus+ projects and writing ideas for the February 18 deadline, so I have been asked to make an Erasmus+ workshop on project idea development and youth exchanges. It was a tough task to summarize everything in a 2 hour workshop, but it worked out quite well with good handout material being distributed among members.
I have also initiated “GEEK’N”, which is a series of board game and video game nights and tournaments. The first event was a lot of fun with more than 20 people joining to learn how to play board games and have a tournament in Mortal Kombat. I plan to host this event on a monthly basis in the organization.
Both in November and December with my mentor we have been working on a small funding application for our idea about escape rooms, but sadly nothing turned out from these ideas.
December
The festive month brought the festive mood, and a cool graffiti opportunity. There has been a project connected to Graffiti implemented by members of Droni and other international participants and the EVS volunteers had the chance to join the painting day and make some spray art as well. It was a lot of fun experimenting and socializing.
Mostly during December I have been working on Bizlab project, which is the key element of my EVS. Bizlab is a local project with the aim to develop and test a set of non-formal games that will increase entrepreneurial skills of young people (such as leadership, creative thinking, decision-making, time management, public speaking, etc.) and will improve their attitude towards socially conscious entrepreneurship. Work on the project started with designing a call for volunteers and searching for a school or youth center to test the games that we will create. With my coordinator we discussed possible places for implementing the games and visited some of them to have meetings with people who work there. I was also busy gathering application forms and contacting potential team members for the project. In mid-December we had a meeting to get to know each other and the project idea, discuss thoughts about the methodology and possible challenges. After the team was formed I started to design training days for the team to learn about game development.
Second “GEEK’N” was also hosted in the Droni office. Quite a lot of the same faces came to compete in Street Fighter and play board games. The most popular game continued to be Settlers of Catan. The game night continued until late night. During the month I also managed to help out with some additional minor activities in the organization.
Then the holiday period came and a friend of mine visited from Estonia, so I had the pleasure to show around Tbilisi and even take a little road trip outside of the capital. On 24nd of December we hosted a small Christmas party in our flat for members of Droni and other EVS volunteers and I left to visit Lviv and join the big international New Year gathering and discover the pearl of Western Ukraine. I think there is no better place for an EVS volunteer to enjoy Christmas, than Ukraine as it is so affordable even when you are on a short budget.
January
Since in Georgia people celebrate Christmas in January and take the “Old New Year” concept seriously beginning of the month is quite laid back. That is why I managed to sneak out to visit friends in Yerevan for a few days, where we managed to engage in escaping some rooms, have a family dinner and play more board games together with close friends from Armenia and Denmark. A good start to a new year I would say!
Once back in Tbilisi I have hosted the training for members of Bizlab to introduce to them game development, share methods of creating games, to set learning goals for each of the topics and come up with an action plan for the group. After the training we started meeting with the team on a weekly basis to create game concepts together and give each other feedback on it. The games that are ready turned out to be really great; I have a positive feeling towards it.
Of course we hosted “GEEK’N” and this time it was dedicated to FIFA tournament, which brought a lot of football fans to the office to compete in the tournament.
Mid-January brought the craze of the upcoming Erasmus+ deadline. Everyday Droni members and EVS volunteers were sitting with concentrated faces and writing project applications. Since I have had experience with writing Erasmus+ projects I have been assigned to help out other volunteers and young members so I spent time consulting and giving feedback to project ideas.
Later that month I have been also working on some project ideas myself that hopefully will take place in autumn 2018 in Georgia and Estonia.
Conclusion
The first three months flew very quickly with lots of work done and even more to come. I have been also dedicating time to learn about new topics in the youth field and read various handbooks and manuals. Hopefully in the upcoming months I will manage to lead more workshops and events in the field.