Classes offered include computer, accounting, English, bee keeping, driver's ed, all types of crafts (you can see samples in the pictures below), shoe making, and hopefully in the new year, furniture making will be revived. We needed funding to renovate a room to use.
I plan on teaching skills assessment and employ-ability skills in the spring with a local partner here, a sharp and very hardworking young man. We hope to have paid internships set up as part of the class, as well as informational interviews. That is even tough in the states, but hey, you have to introduce new ideas, right? I might even have them do a myers-briggs test, what the heck!
The festival offered chess tournament, ping pong, face painting. We sold crafts from ART KODA, our social enterprise, where the profits go back to the Center to pay for more classes. At least that is the concept. But it also offers income to many of the local men and women here.
See also a band we brought from Tbilisi for the day, and a local woman playing her phanduri, and singing about their beloved former home of Tskhinvali, which was burned and destroyed during the war in 2008. Most of the locals here are from South Ossetia region, and many from this town.
A funny part was when the 4 year olds all jumped up and started dancing gangnam style: talk about universal! So a great day for the Center, and for me, still trying to find my way in my new home.
