The FINANCIAL — The U.S. Embassy in Georgia is spending 5 million USD on promoting the USA, including exchange programmes, language development and cultural events.
“Most of our funding for exchange programmes and cultural events comes from Washington. If you look at our budget overall and all of the programmes we are doing for 5 million USD, the bulk of it goes to exchanges. Roughly 4 million goes to supporting exchanges and then we have 100,000-200,000 USD that we use for cultural programming, but it changes from year to year,” said Cynthia Whittlesey, Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy.
The U.S. Embassy is sending almost 200 Georgians to the U.S. annually. There are 24 different exchange programmes in Georgia conducted by the U.S. Embassy.
Georgians are involved in several programmes such as Muskie which is a graduate degree programme for receiving master’s level studies and professional development in the U.S. in a variety of fields; the UGRAD programme which is an undergraduate programme, non-degree; Fulbright which provides opportunities for Georgian scholars to perform post-Ph.D. research or lecturing projects; and Humphrey which brings accomplished mid-level professionals from Georgia to the U.S. for a year of non-degree graduate study and related professional experience.
FLEX is a high school exchange programme where kids go to U.S. families to live and study at high schools there.
“Some programmes have only 1-2 applicants, with Muskie we have 20 students per year, with Flex we have 50, plus the Georgian Government is funding 50 positions to go to the U.S. to high school within the framework of the Flex programme,” declared Whittlesey.
“We are also doing tremendous work with improving English language, English language teaching and learning at schools. We have had an expert working at the Ministry of Education and Science for the last 2 years to help English teachers prepare for the certification exam, she has been travelling all around the country to do workshops with English teachers,” said Whittlesey.
The U.S. Embassy plans to have pilot programmes next year, they will have 5 English speaking specialists – one in Zugdidi, one in Kutaisi, one in Gori and one or two in Tbilisi who will also be working in the schools with teachers and educational resource centres to improve English teaching.
Moreover, there will also be 3-4 English teaching assistants, in Zugdidi, Kutaisi and Gori to assist English language fellows improve the teaching of English in schools.
“We are very excited about the new programme we are starting in the autumn, the Excess Micro Scholarship Programme. It’s an after school English language programme about 5 hours a week, for vulnerable, socially disadvantaged kids. This is a pilot programme for 15 kids, for 2-3 groups of kids from the whole country,” said Whittlesey.
From the autumn the U.S. Embassy also plans to launch English teaching programmes on television with regional broadcasters.
“The show is called Connect with English and it’s kind of a soap opera. It’s the story of a young women/girl and all the things that happen to her, her family and boyfriend. It’s designed to teach people English and this method has proven very effective. Moreover, we will be providing in parallel teaching materials at schools, teachers will distribute materials and work on them in classrooms,” declared Whittlesey.
There are eight American corners around the country – in Zugdidi, Batumi, Akhaltsikhe, Khashuri, Gori, Telavi, Rustavi and Tbilisi, U.S. Embassy partners with a local public library and room or corner in a library where a collection of English language books, videos, computers and internet cafes are provided.
“We use American corners as a programming platform, we try to have speakers go out and talk about American holidays, or baseball or thanksgiving, different types of American things in English.
We also have some Education Advising Centers (EAC) that we fund or co-fund. There is a student advising centre at Tbilisi State University run by the NGO Kvali. Advising students is supported through CIE, the centre for international education. They have 5 offices in Georgia, in Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Akhaltsikhe and Telavi.
If we are not able to go to the regions we try to have representatives or offices we work closely with. It’s quite a strong network with American corners and advising centres all together,” said Whittlesey.
The U.S. Embassy is conducting 2-4 major programmes over the course of the year. Two large-scale projects in recent history were in September, 2009, a concert performance of songs from Broadway musicals with Georgian kids who sang, danced and played in the orchestra. 85 kids in all from Georgia participated in the show. Moreover, 6 professionals were invited from NY City to come for the last three weeks to help stage the performance at the Rustaveli Theatre.
Caucasus Jazz – Caucasus Youth Jazz Festival was the second large scale project conducted in the spring, 2010. Eight young jazz musicians from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia spent a week in Bazaleti doing workshops. At the end of the workshop they did a concert at Event Hall.
“We constructed groups so that there would be Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis in each band for the final performance. The event was quite successful,” said Whittlesey.
“Recently we did an art exhibition called Picturing America that we showed in Akhaltsikhe, Telavi and was closed in Tbilisi. Moreover, we had a navy rock and roll band from the U.S., these are sailors who have a band and with whom we did a concert in the west part of Georgia, outside public squares,” added Whittlesey.
The U.S. Embassy is conducting an essay competition with kids from American corners. “We did an essay competition right before the elections in May, to ask kids what the democracy meant to them and what elections were. We will give the winners of the competition some sort of reward and gift,” declared Whittlesey.
Such types of competitions were done previously also, approximately two years ago they conducted an essay competition on the topic of domestic violence.
“I think what we do mostly are grant programmes, for which I have separate funding between 1-2 million USD annually which is also changing from year to year. We run a number of grant programmes. We have democracy commission small grants, grants up to 24,000 USD for local NGOs on issues like civic integration, sometimes economic development, psychosocial rehabilitation of IDPs after the war, media development and independence,” said Whittlesey.
This past year as part of the 1 billion USD supplements the U.S. Government is providing to Georgia, the U.S. Embassy will initiate three large grant programmes on media freedom and independence.
“We will be linking GIPA journalism school with a U.S. journalism school, so they can carry out partnership over a three year time period. Moreover, we will be doing separate programmes for 3 years for working journalists to expose them to American media and to help them improve their skills,” declared Whittlesey.
The U.S. Embassy is actively funding cultural preservation. They have been engaged in this programme for about 10 years.
“We usually get 1-2 grants approved per year for restoration or conservation work of places and buildings which are considered very important for the local culture.
We did restoration work of the foundation of Ateni Sioni church. This year we were doing restoration of very important religious manuscripts kept in Mestia. Moreover we helped to fund a footpath with information panels at Narikala. We have also done some digitization projects with manuscripts institutes,” said Whittlesey.
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