Supporting Youth-Oriented Public Service Delivery in the Remote Areas of Georgia

The proposed action addresses the barriers to the involvement of vulnerable young people in the decision-making process at the local level and the limited and ineffective public services tailored to them. The project also focuses on the weaknesses, challenges and needs of the vulnerable youth from Shida Kartli, Adjara and Samtskhe-Javakheti with regard to their awareness of civic engagement and existing public services. The target groups of the action are young women, young people with disabilities, conflict-affected youth, and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities from the target regions.

Overall Goal: Enhancing youth capacities in increasing the inclusiveness and responsiveness of the local municipalities in the direction of youth engagements and vulnerable youth-oriented service delivery in Ajdara, Shida Kartli, and Samtskhe Javakheti regions. 

Objective 1: Identify the challenges of active vulnerable youth in the target regions regarding civic participation and in terms of receiving public service by conducting the needs assessment work in a form of focus groups and interviews.

Objective 2: Equipping the young vulnerable youth with the knowledge and skills for effective civic participation and communication for making the local public services more inclusive and accountable through theoretical training, practical exercises, and simulations. 

Objective 3: Supporting the civic empowerment of the local target youth by granting them the opportunity to intern at the local municipalities to gain hands-on work practice through taking ownership of improving the public service delivery and serving as change-makers in their respective communities.

Objective 4: Creating synergies within target regions between youth, local municipalities, media, and the business sectors as well as fostering multi-stakeholder partnerships across different regions of Georgia to provide cooperation, coordination, and experience-sharing.  

Key Activities of the Project:

• Developing the youth needs assessment report based on the focus groups and interviews with the youth, local authorities, media and civil society representatives of the three target regions; 
• Conducting two-day long training sessions for local vulnerable youth in Batumi, Gori, and Akhaltsikhe about capacity development in civic engagement;
• Creating the feedback mechanism for better civic engagement and public service delivery for vulnerable youth with specific needs;
• Arranging the youth internship in local self-governing bodies, NGOs, and Media organizations of Adjara, Samtskhe-Javakheti, and Shida Kartli regions;
• Organizing youth forums in Batumi, Gori, and Akhaltsikhe
• Creating a summarizing multimedia product for illustrating the project results