The FINANCIAL — The Economic Forum of Young Leaders 2008 has officially finished an agreement supporting the citizenship education of young people in Georgia. The agreement between the organizers of the Forum and Caucasus University (CU) was signed in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze.
“This agreement will enable us to send a minimum of 3 students annually to the Economic Forum of Young Leaders. On 5 October an international press conference on media issues will be held in Tbilisi. There will be delegations from Germany, Ukraine and Eastern European countries,” Kakha Shengelia, President of CU, said to The FINANCIAL. “We are going to put more effort into working with our European and North American partners. More students will be sent to study in Europe, the USA, Asia and Africa. One of our missions is to make sure that each of our students spends at least one semester studying abroad.”
The situation in the aftermath of the conflict in Georgia was one of the main topics of the Economic Forum of Young Leaders. Over 300 young leaders of political, economic, social, and non-governmental organizations from 42 countries from the European Union, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus took part in the four-day Forum in Nowy Sącz.
“We met about 300 people from different countries of the European Union at the forum. We’ve made contacts with young leaders from Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and many other countries. Currently we are working on new projects with our new partners. We will actively take part in the “Youth in Action” program. This program connects different country representatives and gives young people the opportunity to get funding for the projects,” Helen Ghelaghutashvilli, participant of the Economic Forum of Young Leaders 2008, told The FINANCIAL
The President of Caucasus University (CU), Kakha Shengelia and students of CU, George Avaliani (sophomore, CSB), Helen Ghelaghutashvilli (sophomore, CSB), Sophie Sarishvili (senior, CSL) visited Nowy Sącz (Poland) and attended the “Economic Forum for Young Leaders 2008”, which took place at the beginning of September 2008. Dr. Shengelia took part in a discussion panel with the following topics “Values and politics: challenges of XXI century” & “Cultural Heritage and Business”.
There was no participation fee for the students. The travel costs of up to EUR 350 were covered by the organizational office of the Forum. The office also provided and covered all expenses of accommodation and meals during the event.
The Forum is a place of discussion and reflection about important problems and challenges for Europe. It has a special impact on the role of the young generation in the process of social and economic changes on the continent. The subjects of the Forum were as follow: identity and European values and most of all the meaning of solidarity in the contemporary world. There were discussions on the issues of the vision of the European Union, development based on knowledge and youth workers mobility.
The participants of the Economic Forum were Reinhard Selten (Nobel Prize laureate in Economics), Giorgi Baramidze (Deputy Prime-Minister of Georgia), Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (Prime Minister of Poland), Viviane Reding (European Commissioner for Information Society and Media), Robert Sutor (Vice-President of IBM), Leopold Unger (Publisher of Le Soir) and many others.
Very significant aspects of the Forum were workshops organized by coaches of the European Union program “Youth in Action”. “Informal education is a useful tool thanks to which young people learn how to talk. This technique can be successfully applied to politics or in studying the mechanisms of economy,” said Dorota Prymek, a workshop coach of the “Youth in Action” Programme.
“We are going to actively work with our neighbour Turkish and Armenian partners. This partnership will entail participating in the process as a mediator between two parties,” said George Avaliani, sophomore at the Caucasus School of Business.
The coaches of the Programme organized three workshops for the participants of the Forum: the active role of the youth in socio-political life; the variability of cultures and fighting against social exclusion. Divided into small groups, the young leaders prepared presentations about the most important challenges and problems that are interwoven in our social lives.
The participants of the workshops also noticed that fighting global problems is often connected with acting for one’s own local society
“The Forum was on issues that are currently important for the European Union, such as Europe challenging the 21st century, Georgia’s integration in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), increasing the role of young leaders in solving the political issues in Europe. Despite the fact there was a Russian delegation present at the Forum all of the countries supported Georgia,” noted Sophie Sarishvili, senior at the Caucasus School of Law, and participant of the Forum.
According to the participants, the Forum establishes the role of the young generation within the social and economic changes taking place on the Eurasian Continent.
The parties agreed to exchange information and invitations to projects and events organized by them; search the participants in their countries and among partner institutions, elaborate joined project of political education in future; develop the idea of the Economic Forum of Young Leaders.
This agreement establishes closer cooperation between the parties in the process of elaborating political education programmes in Europe and strategic partnership in organizing the Economic Forum of Young Leaders.
The Caucasus University is recognized as a strategic partner of the Economic Forum of Young Leaders. This strategic partnership means commitment to promotion of the Forum among Georgian organizations, nomination of the two best young leaders from Georgia as candidates for participation in the Forum each year; support of the Forum by inviting guest speakers and outstanding politicians, economists from Georgia and other European countries. “Common multinational projects, internships and trainings, as well as support for NGOs are the specific measurement of the Forum in Nowy Sącz,” Giorgi Baramidze summed up the agreement.
Written By Levan Lomtadze
Discussion about this post