December 15, 2015
Georgia
Caritas Czech Republic supports the involvement of young people in Batumi into the issues of public life. According to public opinion research the Batumian students and all young people aged 14 to 29 realize that they get little information about educational and work programs as well as about cultural events offered by the local town hall or many NGOs.
Young people also pointed out the fact that even if they get the information, it is often too late. For example, the advertisements for youth programs appear on the Internet just a few days before the deadline for submission of applications. Therefore, Caritas Czech Republic launched the website www.young.ge to prevent other problems with lack of access to information.
This spring, the Progress Organization, a partner of Caritas Czech Republic, conducted youth opinion research dedicated to the design and content of the upcoming website. The research was carried out in the form of group discussions, which showed the most desired categories: Education, Programmes, Job Vacancies, Entertainment and Culture. The youngsters also chose an eye-catching logo, trigger clip and menu details. Moreover, the website uses the system web-2.0, which allows users to add their own comments and bookmarks.
The official launch of the website, together with a presentation, took place on May 15th in the meeting hall of the municipal council with the participation of Batumi Mayor Giorgio Ermakov, representatives, NGOs and the media. On this occassion 20 organizations in total committed themselves to providing information regularly about their events and programs for youth.
Over the course of the summer, Caritas Czech Republic introduced the website, its content and control to high school and university students from Batumi, while putting up banners with the logo young.ge on sidewalks and city walls. The participants of the promotional activities appreciated that it was right in their town where they managed to launch the first national Georgian website aimed exclusively at students and young people – and on top of that, created from their suggestions.
The statistics made from autumn showed that only in September, a total of 1643 individual visitors read the information about 43 events and programs from 18 organizations on the website young.ge. The activities of Caritas Czech Republic are financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Programme for Transformation Cooperation.
