The FINANCIAL — If you don’t have any plans for the summer and are instead looking to find a short-term job, you are facing a big challenge.
Unlike jobs, summer courses are more common in Georgia.
Prospero Books is one of the few companies which offer summer jobs. Prospero Books is a literary café on Rustevli Avenue. Each summer the café announces a vacancy for a consultant and waitress. The job lasts three months.
“We don’t have any age limitation. Anyone who wants to work with us, is allowed to,” said Rati Zautashvili, Supervisor of Prospero Books.
“There are several steps in the recruitment process and after that we hire a person for three months. Later if he/she wants to continue working at Prospero Books, we give them the chance as well,” he added.
Working as an “animator” in Turkish hotels is another possibility for the young generation in summer. Hotels are looking for young, active, talented actors as “animators”. Their main responsibility is to entertain guests. Animators are divided into three groups: those who are working for men, women and children.
20 year old Giga Gogichadze is a student of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. Last summer he worked as an animator in the hotel Sunset in Antalya.
“I wanted to earn money and have fun at the same time, that’s why I decided to be an animator,” Gogichadze told The FINANCIAL. “A lady who was a manager at that hotel arranged a casting in Tbilisi and chose several of us from that. I spent 3 months in Turkey and got 420 USD a month.”
“My main responsibility was to entertain guests. Every night we arranged shows and during the daytime played volleyball, water polo and basketball with guests. Most of the tourists were from Russia and Ukraine, so we spoke Russian. We had several short breaks. It was quite tough and I don’t want to do the same job again this summer,” Gogichadze said.
Gogichadze spent only 3 months in Antalya. But in general animators are hired for periods of 5 months.
This summer tourism agency TL Travel was arranging summer internships in Turkey for students. Animator was one out of the four jobs TL Travel offered. The agency signed a memorandum with Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgian Technical University and some other leading universities.
“Unfortunately for this summer the project failed,” Tea Jejelava said. “Studies finish too late at Georgian universities and we couldn’t meet the time schedule of the Turkish hotels.”
“Currently we’re working to improve our project management and for next summer we will definitely take Georgian students to Turkey for summer internships,” she believes.
Summer studying opportunities are more widely available in Georgia. Several universities and language schools offer summer courses in Tbilisi as well as abroad.
The French University arranges French courses in several French summer schools: Alliance Française in Paris, Nice and Bordeaux, AzurLingua in Nice and European Institute in Montpellier.
A one week course costs about 200 EURO, excluding travel, living and eating expenses.
“The price of the service varies according to the type of course,” said Manana Iashvili, representative of French University. “We offer 10-20 percent discounts to our students.”
The Georgian Institute of Public Affairs offers courses in different disciplines: a summer school for national security and diplomacy, photojournalism, photo documentaries, PR management etc.
During the national security and diplomacy course students will study: a history of world diplomacy, a basis of comparative politics, international organizations. Studying will last two months and the fee is 600 GEL.
The course in photojournalism and photo documentaries lasts two months. The studying fee is 250 EUR for photojournalism and 1,200 GEL for photo documentaries.
“The photojournalism course is in English and Russian languages, photo documentaries – in Georgian,” said Natia Metreveli, Programmes Coordinator at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs.
“There are always lots of students enrolled on each course, but PR Management is the most popular one,” she added.
In the summer English language courses are available at Caucasus Academic Centre and International House.
Caucasus Academic Centre has three types of English courses and their prices differ: the General English course costs 395 GEL, English for Children – 235 GEL, and Business English – 485 GEL. Studies are daily and last 6 weeks.
Iana Chanchaneishvili, Head of the Marketing and Development Department at Caucasus Academic Centre said that in summer there is more demand for the children’s course. Unlike them, Temur Bazghaidze, Manager of International House, said that they have more students for their General English language course than their Children’s course.
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