DVV supporting Life Long Learning in Georgia

I will soon wrap up my second and final year in the Georgia Peace Corps, and feel very fortunate to have been assigned to the Koda Community Education Center (CEC).  The Koda settlement is a former Soviet military base, renovated to house just 1500 of  the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the war with Russia in South Ossetia in 2008.

This Center, which was founded and is supported by DVV, the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association, aims to help the IDPs as well as the local residents. DVV operates nationally and internationally, cooperating for over 45 years with 200 state, civil society and university partner organizations engaged in adult education in 30 countries throughout the world.  I would like to share more about DVV, its new Network of Centers (GAEN) and my evolving thoughts on their goals and successes.

DVV International

DVV's work focuses on literacy and basic education, vocational training, global and intercultural learning, environmental education and sustainable development, migration and integration, refugee work, health education, conflict prevention and democracy education. In all this it advocates for the human right to education and for lifelong learning.

It has been an honor to work with this institution which began in the 1960s with training seminars for African adult educators in the German Adult Education Centers. In 1963 it began its work in Latin America,  then Costa Rica, and Columbia. In 1977 it opened support for Asia. And in 1990 it began work in Central and Eastern Europe.  The Guiding Principles:

- Guidance and skills training are an integral part of lifelong learning;

- Adult education has emancipatory importance for social and individual development;

- History and culture play an important part in determining aims, content, forms and methods;

- There is a moral basis for solidarity with people's struggle for development in partner countries;

- Our aim is to set objective goals in cooperation with our partners.

DVV in Georgia and Koda

"The educational content of our work focuses on basic education, environmental education and democratization. We pay particular attention to the aims of combating poverty, promoting the advancement of women, and strengthening self-help."

I personally have witnessed the ability of DVV to network and connect our KODA CEC with donors and potential partners from around the world:  groups that support women, vocational education,  civil society and youth programs. One of my personal favorites was working with partners to support  consumer credit consulting and training initiatives,  supported by Sparkassenstiftung, the German Savings Bank.

GAEN (Georgian Adult Education Network) 

DVV works toward sustainability. Each year it opens new centers across Georgia, and challenges the existing ones to continue their good work,  through more of their own funding sources.  DVV sets up and initially funds an advisory network association that mentors, trains, leads, and fund raises for all the country's Centers, capitalizing on their economy of scale and strength in numbers.  GAEN is currently a network of 8 DVV Centers across Georgia which supports the Centers from a strategic planning level, all the way down to tactical management support.  Its value can not be underestimated as the Centers continue to develop into high functioning assets for their communities.  

Adult culinary course in North Carolina

Khatia Tsiramua, former Koda CEC 
Director and founder and current GAEN Director

   

"It’s Never too Late to Learn!”was one project GAEN successfully completed last year.  Many of the embassies located in Georgia  displayed photos both of their home countries and of Georgia highlighting their activities supporting adult non-formal education. Even North Carolina State,  a  US  leader in adult education through its 58 Community Colleges, was represented. 

GAEN is also leading a very powerful Gender awareness project. This 18 month project has engaged 14 communities in the country. The focus is awareness of domestic violence, financial discrimination in the family, selective abortions and youth marriages. 

         

My Evolving Attitude

As a basic student of American idealism and pragmatism, I came to the Center focused on vocational education, and was delighted to learn that its founder was determined to support non-formal adult education. I can appreciate and support this basic education, helping to get people back on their feet with vocational training, and of course sustainable development, as well as the other lofty goals. However, I was struggling with the objective of enabling lifelong learning, and a specific project that was kicked off in many Georgian locations including Koda, focusing on lifelong learning for older residents. 

"Active for Life," funded by the EU, addresses learning by 60+ year old beneficiaries for personal development.  It included sharing music, literature, cooking, and photography.  Two popular elements of the program were the weekly visits by a psychologist and doctor.

Final group meeting with Psychologist Etuna

The Koda IDP settlement has many issues. Being in existence for eight years now, it still struggles with decent drinking water, limited, scheduled non-potable water supply for the apartments, poor soil and very limited irrigation for the small farm plots of these former agrarian neighbors, There is also high unemployment.   I could see a lot of needs in the settlement and the town as well where outside funding would help fix more pressing problems than learning just for learning sake -or so I thought.  So at first I was suspicious of this project.

Remembering and sharing 
old folk songs

One of the advantages of being a Peace Corps volunteer is that life slows down, if you let it.  Life can be simple. It is tiring attempting to understand local TV or movies. It is hard to continue with US hobbies, difficult to exercise. Time allows one the luxury to experience changes in attitudes, and Peace Corps allows us, no encourages us, to have the flexibility to change, even for us mature folks. Time allows us to challenge some basic, long held attitudes.  So I was mentally available to watch the outcome of the project and the gradual transition of the participants.   As the project continued, I could see a more positive attitude among the participants.  Those who were not as engaged in the community came forward with a heightened interest, seemed to become more friendly, relaxed and happy, less worried.  This feeling was contagious, and could be  replicated in their children, and grandchildren. 

As I pondered these changes, occurring during this program I was reminded of Maslow’s Hierarchy. His 1943 Theory of Human Motivation, studied in everyone’s college Psychology 101 class, suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs.

I would also like to mention  that in his later works he stated that the self only finds its actualization in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.

 Applying Maslow's Hierarchy to the Koda experience and the world of refugees, whether internally displaced or otherwise, we must remember that basic safety comes first.   When the Center first opened it helped to bring people out of their apartments and helped them overcome some of the initial fear since their abrupt and life changing ejection from S. Ossetia.  As time went on they were able to address higher level needs and wants. 

I assumed the most important thing I could do here was to teach people how  "to fish“ - how to get on with their lives through financial stability - jobs and new livelihoods.  But how can they have motivation to be creative and change careers as well as everything else they had known, to realize their full potential ( level 5) when they were still worrying about the stability of their housing, safety, healthcare,etc. (level 1 & 2)?

 

Life Long Learning 

The "Active for Life" program helped the participants regain some of their motivation. They felt more in control of their future and in regaining their self confidence. Near the end of the project, they had a performance in Tbilisi, at a local theater.  In the production, the participants played roles as if they were trying out for an international festival about to occur in Europe. They auditioned by song, dance and poetry.  It was delightful!

I see the change in my people here in Koda.  I see the renewed optimism. I see the motivation to get on with their lives.  After 8 years here, they are building garages, farming huts for livestock, gardens, stores and other businesses.  But without their basic level of needs satisfied, they would not be moving forward.  And I believe that DVV's focus on this personal development is as important as all their other goals.  Lali Santeladze, the Country Director for DVV, believes that the success of DVV here in Georgia is best demonstrated by that attribute most difficult to quantify, the changed attitude and spirit of its beneficiaries. And I have seen the success of this spirited motivation on a daily basis in Koda.   It has been a pleasure to serve with these good people at DVV and Koda Community Education Center, and I know they will continue to serve their community well. 

What's a project without a supra!

Madona, our Koda director, enjoying
her successful project!

Poems and Speeches

me... and my ladies

  

The Paravani Pass just Opened...

 What lucky timing.  My cousin from Budapest came to Tbilisi to attend a medical students association conference, and came early to visit me for a few days.  Orsi is so delightful, and she and her family have hosted our family in Budapest so often it was nice to reciprocate. Mike and Marcia, as usual,  had planned a great exploratory weekend and invited us. It is so nice to be on one of Mike's "adventures."

  We drove southwest from Koda to Tsalka and its beautiful Tsalka lake, and then up and over the Paravani Pass which is now open for the spring.

Tsalka

Chapel at the convent. 

We drove past Paravani Lake and stopped at the southern tip to visit a well known Orthodox convent where they sell "french" type cheese, candy, honey and other homemade delicacies. Poka has nothing in the village but the convent and few houses ( thus the sign, in English).

This is the national Georgian dog. Yes, you can ride some of them. 

Orsi with view from the pass

Khertvisi fortress on the way to Vardzia

Next we traveled northwest on our way to Vardzia. We drove past the stunning Khertvisi fortress, which is one of the oldest fortresses in Georgia and was functional throughout the Georgian feudal period.  It sits on a rocky hill at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Paravani Rivers. And more than that, in researching it,  I think it gives a great example of the history in Georgia.  For example, the fortress was first build in the 2nd century BC. The church was built in 985, and the present walls build in 1354. During the 12th century it became a town. In the 13th century Mongols destroyed it and until the 15th century it lost its power. In the 15th century it was owned  by a family and some repairs began. In the 16th century the southern region of Georgia was invaded by Turks. During next 300 years   Khertvisi was under Turkish control.  Then at the end of the 19th century Georgian and Russian army returned the lost territories and Khertvisi became the military base for Russian and Georgian troops.  Today it is on the list of tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage.

Vardzia is an amazing cave site, once inhabited by 50,000 people!

Hi Kaitlin and Jenny - bumped into fellow PCVs
getting the last of touring in before closing our service...soon.

We finally made it to Vardzia, a cave monastery site, excavated from the slopes of the Erusheti Mountain on the bank of the Kura River. Soviet-era excavations have shown that the area of Vardzia was inhabited during the Bronze Age. 

The main period of construction was the second half of the twelfth century. The caves stretch along the cliff for some five hundred metres and in up to nineteen tiers. The Church of the Dormition, dating to the 1180s during the golden age of Tamar and Rustaveli, has an important series of wall paintings. The site was largely abandoned after the Ottoman takeover in the sixteenth century.   I was surprised that we saw an incredible amount of work that had been done to capture rain water, in almost every room in the left side of the structure.  I don't remember that from our Mesa Verdi in the US. 

Orsi and Pam tunneling through Vardzia