UNICEF in Georgia Photo on Cover: © UNICEF/Geo-2008/Giacomo Pirozzi © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 UNICEF in Georgia Photo on cover: © UNICEF/Geo-2008/Giacomo Pirozzi © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili

Editorial Note

The Newsletter of the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF in Georgia, is published annually in English and Georgian. Our publication aims to provide information on UNICEF activities in Georgia. This is the twelfth issue of the News- letter. Your remarks and recommendations concerning the publication will be appreciated. Please, let us know if you wish to obtain any additional information on UNICEF and its work. We welcome any feedback, sugges- tions or contributions.

If you wish to obtain a copy of the Newsletter or any other information, please, contact Maya Kurtsikidze, Communication Ofﬁcer, at the UNICEF Ofﬁce in Georgia.

Telephone: (995 32) 232388, 251130, Fax: 25 12 36 E-mail: [email protected]

Foreword by the UNICEF Representative

2008 was a challenging and extremely difficult year for Georgia. The dual shocks of the August conflict and the global financial and economic crisis halted the economic growth of previous years and had a dramatic impact on the situation of women and children.

The Government of Georgia remains consistent in its commitments to rapid reform and to market-based solutions to tackle inefﬁciencies and poorly UNICEF in Georgia 2009

run services. However, there is no systematic approach to addressing child poverty which remains a concern.. According to the UNICEF commissioned Survey on Child Poverty carried out in 2008, about 12 per cent of children live in extreme poverty and 28 per cent live under the total poverty line, compared to the lower levels of 9 per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the general population.

The study also revealed that 44 per cent of children in Georgia live on less than $2 a day and children are poorer than the rest of the population but receive less support from the state. Children in rural areas are more likely to suffer poverty than those in urban areas and several underlying causes of child poverty were identiﬁed, including low social spending, widespread and persistent unemployment and limited access to social services. Yet children are not a speciﬁc target of poverty reduction strategies.

The August 2008 conﬂict led to the rapid displacement of approximately 133,000 people in Georgia. However, some 100,000 were able to return to their homes, albeit often with diminished livelihoods, livestock, and access to public services. Approximately 30,000 still remain displaced. Despite the rapid pace of reform in the health sector, Georgia is facing some challenges in meeting the Millenium Development Goals targets, par- ticularly Maternal mortality and infant mortality rates.. Any further reduction in infant mortality will depend on substantial improvement in child sur- vival during the neonatal period, especially the early neonatal period during which most of the neonatal deaths occur.

Education reform in Georgia has been rapid and far reaching with the introduction of per-capita ﬁnancing and community-based management of schools. However challenges remain in achieving the Millennium Develop- ment Goals for school enrollment and attendance - the Net Enrollment Ratio is at 94.6 per cent with some ethnic, gender and income disparity.

Recent data suggest a signiﬁcant decrease in the number of children in residential care: from approximately 5,000 children in institutional care in 2005 down to 2356 in 2008. However, there remain signiﬁcant gaps in the monitoring system and data are not always reliable.

The Government should be complimented on its efforts in launching the Child Action Plan 2008-2011, which widens the Child Welfare Reform process from a previous emphasis on deinstitutionalization to include prevention and family support, as well as the protection of children from violence, abuse and neglect and poverty.

Joint efforts and collaboration with the donor community and civil society resulted in considerable achievements in the spheres of juvenile justice, early childhood development, nutrition, birth registration and care for disadvantaged children. But we have still a lot of challenges ahead: addressing child poverty, advocating for child-friendly policies and actions and protecting the rights of displaced and war-affected children.

We are conﬁdent that during the coming years Georgia, with the support of its partners, will address the remaining challenges to continue improving the lives of children.

Giovanna Barberis UNICEF Representative in Georgia

2 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Child Health and Development

Effective perinatal training and care Following the Government of Georgia’s decision to retrain health professionals working in the area of perinatal care, equipping them with the knowledge and skills according to WHO Effective Perinatal Care guidelines, UNICEF spotted a ﬂaw in the system. The professionals’ knowledge would be relatively up to date, but students at Georgia’s top medical university were being taught to work the old way.

UNICEF offered support to update and improve pre-service training, targeting the leader in the medical training ﬁeld, Tbilisi State Medical University, and partnering with the World Health Organization, USAID and John Snow Institute.

The partners supported Tbilisi State Medical University in designing an evidence-based perinatal care course for 5th and 6th year students; the resi- dency course is currently under development.

An academic team composed of local experts, guided by WHO expert Dr. Gianfranco Gori revised the whole obstetrics and gynecology curriculum, agreeing on the composition of the learning package, which they decided should be composed of presentations and handouts for students and a facilitators’ guide. The aim was to come up with a new programme which would be modern, evidence-based, interactive and meet the requirements of the WHO Effective Perinatal Care approach.

As reform is ongoing at the university, the new perinatal care course may be expanded to 4th year students, and although it is currently only being taught at one university in Georgia, other medical faculties may use the same curriculum.

Campaigning for immunization Aimed at behavior change, the Communication Campaign on Immunization carried out by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science and with the support of UNICEF in 2007 was the ﬁrst mass communication campaign to incorpo- rate all stages of strategic communication and social marketing ever undertaken in Georgia.

The evaluation of the campaign carried out in 2008 revealed that timely vaccination at the age of two, three and four months was the key issue to be addressed and so the communications strategy focused on delivering the message on this issue and achieving positive changes in this area through inﬂuencing behavior.

The survey also found that common knowledge of infectious diseases increased by 17.7 per cent, awareness of the necessity of vaccinations to protect against these diseases is up by 4 per cent and the rate of trust in the safety of vaccination jumped by 21.6 per cent. There has been a 16 per cent rise in the number of infants under one year old being vaccinated against dangerous diseases at the right time.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 3 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

The evaluation of the campaign also revealed that considerably more infants are now protected through immunization from the three targeted diseases – diphtheria (vaccinations up 10.5 per cent), hepatitis B and polio (vaccinations up 0.2 per cent).

Fight with iodine deﬁciency continues The Georgian government initially took steps to deal with iodine deﬁciency, which is a serious problem in Georgia, in 1998, launching a large-scale response following UNICEF advocacy.

The response was a success: the last cross-country iodine assessment, carried out in 2005, showed that the country had almost reached the WHO indicator for consumption of iodine.

However, without consistent monitoring of iodine consumption there was a risk that the problem of deﬁciency could reemerge.

4 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

In 2007 the Government abolished the Iodine Deficiency Prevention Pro- gramme due to the considerable costs involved. There is an important need for continued vigilance concerning iodine deficiency and all countries should carry out periodic urinary iodine surveys. As resources were not available for a cross-country survey following on from the 2005 survey in 2008, UNICEF supported a small scale survey on iodine deficiency in one of the regions (Kvemo Kartli) of Georgia.

When the results of the survey demonstrated that mild iodine deficiency was present in the region and that the situation had worsened since 2005, despite the fact that salt is adequately iodized (confirmed by the salt quality monitoring activities carried out by The Ministry of Agriculture with UNI- CEF financial support) and salt intake was high, UNICEF concluded that the reason for the deterioration was likely to be a lack of understanding about how to keep salt – which must be stored and covered properly in order to retain its iodine.

In response to this realization UNICEF ran a survey on knowledge, attitude and practices surrounding iodized salt and a major awareness-raising campaign is planned for next year.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 5 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Nutrition survey unveils the problem of obesity among displaced children With tens of thousands of people displaced following the conﬂict in and around South Ossetia, Georgia, in August 2008, UNICEF worked with the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN on a joint needs assessment of people rendered homeless by the war – Internally Displaced Persons.

IDP children living in collective centres, villages affected by the war and new settlements were included in the survey, one of the main ﬁndings of which was that the underweight rate was in line with normal rates for all populations.

However, obesity levels and the overweight rate, as estimated by the distribution of the body mass index (BMI) for age, was worrying.

Pediatricians concluded that this was due to the fact that food aid to the IDPs, although providing a good calorie intake, was not well nutritionally balanced.

Therefore, it was recommended that food aid should be complemented by a direct cash payment to IDP mothers to enable them to buy fresh food with the right nutritional content for their children.

The joint needs assessment also found problems of chronic undernutrition, highlighted by stunting, and a possibility that some children are suffering from acute malnutrition, although further investigation is needed to conﬁrm that this problem is present among IDP children.

Child Development Centre A young doctor in a pretty pink coat examined a little girl with a stetho- scope. Beside the child were her mother and her brother, playing with toy building blocks.

Three year-old Tamar smiled and nodded as we asked her if she liked all the toys at the health centre she’s in.

“She says yes,” said Dr Tamta Ivanashvili, “and she just told me she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.”

Tamar was at the newly opened Child Development Centre at the Tbilisi Iashvili Children’s Hospital. Supported by UNICEF, Trieste Institute of Child Health and the Government of Lithuania, the centre, which is the only one of its type in the country, addresses the problem of misdiagnosis with re- gard to developmental problems amongst children.

The centre diagnoses children with mental and physical problems and puts an emphasis on a holistic approach, taking into account children’s psychological and psychosocial state as well as their physical and mental health. It also serves as a clinical practice site for the Tbilisi State Medical University division of general pediatrics.

The centre aims to assess the health and the overall development of a child, manage developmental delays and behavioral problems, and provide quality and accessible services for child development surveillance. It also acts as

6 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 a training and research centre for public health care professionals, pediatricians, social workers and educators.

It will also diagnose, treat and rehabili- tate young children aged 0-3 in state institutions and will provide training and technical supervision to the health professionals and educators working in such residential homes.

To the patients of the centre and their families, it is much more than just another hospital.

For the children treated here, it is a fun, unintimidating place where they enjoy © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Zviad Nikolaishvili being. The emphasis is on making children feel relaxed and easy here, hence the doctors’ pink coats and the abun- dance of toys.

“Often the children don’t want to leave, they cry when they have to go,” one of the doctors said.

And for parents who may have struggled for months or years to get the right diagnosis for a critically-ill child, the clinic is a haven of support and professionalism.

Natia is an IDP who lost her home during last year’s conﬂict in South Ossetia, Georgia. When Natia brought her one- year-old daughter Nino to the local clinic in Gori, the child was misdiagnosed. Doctors told Natia that the child had a serious disease, but this was questioned by the pediatricians in the Child Deve- lopment Centre.

“I feel the doctors here are very ap- proachable,” said Natia. “I feel I can ask them whatever I want.”

“IDPs are treated here for free. My dream is that each child born in Georgia should have equal opportunities. UNICEF is helping us achieve this in health care and education too – we have produced learning materials for the parents,” said Professor Ketevan Nemsadze, director of the centre. © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen Children who the clinic determines need further treatment will be referred on to the Iashvili Children’s Hospital, and the Child Development Centre will keep a record of all the data on each child it sees.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 7 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Professor Nemsadze explained that she is trying to get the word about the clinic out throughout the country so that many people can avail of its services. Only open a few months, it is already very busy.

But her priority is making sure the IDP communities know about the centre and are referred here when necessary.

“We work with the clinics in Tbilisi who deal with IDPs,” she said. “We have developed referral critieria and with UNICEF support we started training in these clinics, so that if doctors see a child with certain development problems they send them to us.”

“This year we are concentrating on seven clinics in Tbilisi, but next year I hope we will work in the regions too,” she added.

The Child Development Centre was established within the framework of the National Early Childhood Development Strategy which underlines the importance of children’s holistic development, and deﬁnes children’s needs in both the health and educational spheres. The latest scientiﬁc evidence suggests that programmes which combine health and education are more effective in improving a child's current wellbeing and preventing future problems.

The National Strategy on Early Childhood Development was developed by the parliamentary Alliance on Early Childhood Development with the support of UNICEF. The Alliance, chaired by the Vice-Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Dr. Giorgi Tsereteli, is leading the overall implementation of the strategy.

8 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 Emergency response in health and nutrition

Following the conﬂict in and around South Ossetia, Georgia in August 2008 UNICEF provided wide-ranging aid to 78,000 conﬂict-affected children and their families.

One of the main areas to beneﬁt from UNICEF’s intervention was that of health and nutrition amongst displaced families.

The Government of Georgia responded to the problems of obesity and stunting among IDP children, revealed by the joint needs assessment de- tailed above, by suggesting a programme of direct cash assistance to IDP families, as proposed by pediatricians.

UNICEF, the WFP and UNHCR all contributed funds for the direct cash assistance programme, under which families with children under 2 years old were given 100 lari per month – lodged in the mother’s bank account – to buy the right food and hygienic items for their babies. A once-off payment of 100 Lari for purchasing winter clothes was provided by UNICEF for children under six years of age.

Advice on what food mothers should buy for their babies was drawn up by the Academy of Paediatricians and distributed to IDPs. Mobile paediatric

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 9 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

teams carefully monitored how the money was being spent and offered advice and support on nutrition and infant health to the recipients.

As pediatricians carried out the assessment they simultaneously distributed the food supplement ‘Plumpy Doz’, one spoonful of which per day provides a child with all the necessary vitamins and micronutrients. The supplement was provided by UNICEF.

A crucial component of the emergency nutrition programme for IDPs was tackling the problems with breast feeding among the same community.

Even prior to the war Georgia already had serious problems in this area and the danger in the emergency situation was that breast-milk substitutes, which had been donated in great volume to Georgia following the war, would be even more widely used by nursing mothers in the IDP community.

Several steps were taken to prevent this, with paediatricians working with this group to achieve relactation, something which they managed to do in 14 per cent of cases. Then a strategy was put carefully in place to ensure that all the babies of the IDPs were fed well and that breast-milk substitutes reached those mothers who could not breast feed their babies.

The fact that there would be no general distribution of breast-milk substitutes was made known by a statement released by UNICEF and signed by all the agencies working with the IDPs.

Through proper monitoring and surveillance UNICEF with the help of its partners ensured that distribution of all substitutes donated to Georgia went only to those mothers who could not breastfeed.

In addition to targeting nutrition problems among IDPs, UNICEF supported the work of the Public Health Department in Western Georgia, where UNICEF-led investigations revealed a shortfall in the capacity of public health services to identify the diseases affecting the internally displaced population. UNICEF ﬁnanced the hiring of an additional 27 epidemiologists who were assigned to particular camps and IDP centres where they worked on diagnosis and medication.

Finally, UNICEF provided ﬁnancial support for the disinfection and disinsection of 537 IDP camps and centres in Western Georgia for a period of three months, after which most of the IDP population in the region had moved back to where they had lived before the war.

Water, sanitation and hygiene Georgia, despite enjoying excellent surface water resources, struggles with a strained old water-supply infrastructure.

The situation was compounded by the conﬂict in and around South Ossetia, Georgia in August 2008 and so UNICEF, in partnership with other organisations, stepped in to alleviate some of the need for clean water and adequate sanitation.

Projects giving emergency support in water, sanitation and hygiene were rolled out both in the areas where the conﬂict unfolded and among the internally displaced people in the many places they settled.

10 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Working with UNHCR, Premiere Urgence and CARITAS, UNICEF’s initial response in the area of water and sanitation was to distribute basic family water and hygiene kits to a total of almost 4,000 internally displaced families in collective centres and in private accommodation in the Shida Kartli area of the country.

Following this distribution, another wave of work was launched in October 2008 by UNICEF in conjunction with Oxfam GB, International Rescue Committee, Action Against Hunger and Abkhazintercont. This work included improvements carried out on the water supply infrastructure in collective centres in Tbilisi and Gori and in both collective centres and areas to which refugees returned after the war in the wider Shida Kartli area and in western Georgia.

The second wave of work also saw hygiene and water kits distributed to over 20,000 households and families and hygiene promotion activities organised in 114 collective centres.

In collaboration with its four implementing partners, UNICEF distributed about 3,000 hygiene and basic family water kits to the rapidly constructed new settlements without indoor running water.

UNICEF and its partners organised a system of committees which take responsibility for overseeing hygiene standards, both in collective centres and in the wider communities. In addition to this children have been educated as to why and how it is important to maintain stringent hygiene standards.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 11 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

In collaboration with the Shida Kartli local government, UNICEF also obtained sufﬁcient chlorine powder to cover the water chlorination needs for the 2008/2009 winter period and in partnership with the Shida Kartli Water Department procured six electric water pumps and a Caterpillar machine for earth works to improve access to water for villages in the area adjacent to the administrative border with South Ossetia.

In June 2009, UNICEF launched a survey on the water, sanitation and hygiene situation of IDPs in Georgia. Prepared in collaboration with Action Contre le Faim and the International Rescue Committee, the report showed that 47 per cent of IDPs in the new settlements and collective centers in Gori do not have access to sufﬁcient quantities and in some cases satisfac- tory quality of water for daily use. The report also presents a wide range of solutions to the observed problems and UNICEF will, in partnership with ACF and IRC, assist the Government in addressing some of these problems.

REAL LIVES Rehabilitation of school water and sanitation infrastructure By Guy Degen

April 2009, GORI, Georgia:

Tortiza Village School near Gori still bears the scars of last year's conﬂict between Russia and Georgia.

One of the main school buildings is blackened by ﬁre and stands in ruins.

However, as part of reconstruction efforts, UNICEF and International Rescue Committee (IRC), have installed a new water system and improved school sanitation with ﬂush toilets.

The school was closed for nearly three months last year while school authorities waited until buildings were safe to reopen and internally displaced people living in the school found alternative accommodation.

Natia Sirbiladze (9) is one of many pupils who feels her school is much better now. “I’m very happy now that we have a water tap,” she said.

“Before we had to go to my classmate's house to bring water. I’m also very happy that we have now the toilet as well.”

Good hygiene for health School children in Tortiza are also receiving training in good hygiene practices from the IRC.

It's information they can share with their families at home or in centres for internally displaced people.

12 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

“Our awareness about various infectious diseases has increased. We also learnt what causes diar- rhoea,” said 14 year old school pupil Tamar Akhalkatsi.

“We didn’t have a proper toilet or water to wash our hands or to drink. Often we had to miss classes to go to nearby houses for water.”

UNICEF played a leading role in coordinating emergency response in water, sanitation and hygiene and together with its partners reached more than 100,000 internally displaced people with hygiene and basic family water kits.

Providing clean water

UNICEF is improving local water systems in the Gori region to prevent outbreaks of water-borne diseases.

UNICEF assisted the Gori city municipality to obtain an exca- vator to replace old water pipes and pipes damaged during the August 2008 conﬂict.

The water supply for the city of Gori, and surrounding communities, is now regularly treated with chlorine offering safe water for more than 50,000 residents.

Repairs to older water reservoirs and pumps is also helping to pro- © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen vide clean drinking water in re- mote villages.

“It's essential in a conﬂict or a natural disaster that UNICEF and its partners ensure that every child and family has access to safe drinking water, basic sanitary conditions and the supplies needed to maintain basic family hygiene practices,” said Benjamin Perks, UNICEF Georgia Deputy Representative.

Georgia is a country where water is plentiful. As people affected by the conﬂict rebuild their homes and lives, UNICEF will continue working to boost hygiene and sanitation and ensure all communities have access to safe water.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 13 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Education

Birth registration in Kvemo Kartli and Sagarejo regions In the Kvemo-Kartli and Sagarejo regions of Georgia there is a serious problem of non-registration of births among the Azeri community, with 22% of births going unregistered, due to a high number of homebirths and a lack of knowledge and will among the community. This means that many children cannot obtain access to a huge range of social services because they have no proof of birth.

“It means that 22 per cent of children in Kvemo Kartli have less chance to enjoy protection of their rights and to have equal access to early development, free and compulsory basic education, professional training and employment in adulthood, quality medical assistance, to a range of social allowances and services that are established and offered by the government,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Representative in Georgia.

Recent changes in the law saw the Civil Registry Agency take over responsibility for birth registration from the courts and the fee for birth registration abolished.

14 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

The Civil Registry Agency, supported by UNICEF and UNHCR, set about addressing the problem of birth registration among ethnic minorities. The Agency contracted the local NGO “Legal Development and Consultations Group” to carry out the work and lawyers from the NGO worked with community representatives, going from door to door informing ethnic minority families about the importance of birth registration and offering help in ﬁlling in the necessary documents and making the application to the Civil Registry Agency.

All of the services were provided free and the NGO also acted as legal representative at the Civil Registry Agency’s hearings of applicants’ cases.

As well as awareness-raising leaﬂets about birth registration which were delivered to families and to schools and state institutions in the targeted areas, a documentary ﬁlm was made about one particular family and their successful quest to register their children’s birth.

At the request of local authorities the project has expanded its coverage to Kakheti region. So far in Sagarego district 340 excluded children have been registered and mainstreamed into public schools in 2008.

Reforming policy in pre-school education Conditions and knowledge in Georgia among caregivers inside and outside the family home regarding children’s early development were revealed to

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 15 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

be well behind international standards by UNICEF research carried out in 2007.

Problems ranged from a lack of child-centred, responsive parenting through relatively high rates of corporal punishment in the home and poor involve- ment of fathers in parenting, to low-quality facilities in kindergartens and exclusion of disadvantaged children from pre-school education.

In response to these problems, UNICEF supported the Government of Geor- gia in establishing the National Alliance on Early Childhood Development, a group of experts, ofﬁcials, local NGOs and international development partners which works to improve the Early Childhood environment in Georgia, focusing on the importance of a child’s holistic development.

The Alliance functions through thematic working groups, and aims to incor- porate Early Childhood Development principles into national policies within the health and pre-school education sectors, into academia, and into existing education programmes for parents and families.

The Alliance’s Strategic Action Plan for 2007-2009 underlines the importance of a child’s holistic development, and deﬁnes children’s developmental needs in the spheres of both health and education.

Pre-school reform is an integral part of the overall strategy on child development elaborated by the Alliance. Although responsibility for management of pre-school institutions lies with local governments, the Ministry of Edu- cation and Science is developing a normative framework, programmes and training curriculum for pre-primary education.

The reform process envisages creating a framework for quality pre-school education in Georgia, setting standards for child care and for pre-school institutions, developing new policies in the area as well as improving services provided to children in existing pre-school institutions, rehabilitating kindergartens, designing new curriculums and enhancing skills of child care personnel.

Establishing Early Learning Development Standards In line with the reforms in the pre-school area, the Ministry of Education and the National Alliance on Early Childhood Development, in partnership with UNICEF, developed Early Learning Development Standards for children.

These Standards are specific to Georgia and lay out exactly what a child should be able to do at each stage of development from 0-6 years of age, define basic criteria for pre-school quality, a monitoring and reporting system, and a licensing system. A crucial area is improvement in the quality of learning through improving teacher qualifications, establishing teacher standards and developing curricula for pre-school education, as well as ongoing monitoring of the quality of the learning environment by school authorities.

These Standards were devised with the aid of an international expert and meet international norms and targets.

Different guidelines were laid out for families, teachers, school workers and society in general. It is intended that the Standards will serve as a resource

16 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 for all those involved with children in a variety of settings and will improve understanding of how best to promote children’s healthy holistic development and ensure they develop cognitive and literacy skills, physical and motor development skills, social and emotional skills.

Currently undergoing age validation by the Government, the Standards should soon be approved and will be shared with local and national authorities and relevant partners involved with children.

Including vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the pre-school system At the community level, pre-school policy reform was complimented by the efforts of UNICEF, in partnership with local NGO Centre for Education Initiatives, to encourage local authorities to prioritize pre-school education and to ensure that more excluded and socially disadvantaged children attended kindergarten.

Local pre-school directors estimated how many children from disadvantaged backgrounds were failing to attend kindergarten and then worked out criteria to help identify the most needy children and ensure they were ﬁrst in line for free pre-school education.

They allocated resources to pay for these children’s food at kindergarten, a move removes a barrier preventing their parents sending them there.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 17 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

UNICEF worked to build awareness and ensure that local authorities understood that no child should suffer limited access to education because of their parents’ poverty. A tangible and sustainable result of the partnership of UNICEF and the Centre for Education Initiatives with the local authorities is that the latter themselves invested in feeding these disadvantaged children, thus ensuring their access to pre-school education.

In order to ensure inclusion of disadvantaged children into the pre-school system, a feasible and efﬁcient funding scheme was introduced to reach those pre-school-age children who were not involved. In the Kvemo Kartli region alone, the preschool attendance rate has been increased by 60 per cent in 2008. Almost 220 children with special needs and disadvantaged families were integrated into preschool education and currently enjoy shared activities with their peers.

Introducing Step-by-Step child-centred teaching to pre-schools in Georgia We follow a line of blue footsteps painted on a wall next to a staircase and into a bright room ﬁlled with toys, children’s drawings, a piano, a puppet theatre, and, of course, a group of noisy, energetic 5-6 year olds.

Some notice us as we come in and stare, most go on with their play – a striking difference from the room we’ve just come, where the noisy children’s peers, seated silently at small tables, obediently chorused ‘gamarjobat’ or ‘hello’ at our entrance.

The two groups are part of the same kindergarten in Rustavi, where three groups are being taught according to the Step-by-Step child-centred UNICEF/Geo-2008/Marika Amurvelashvili

18 © UNICEF in Georgia 2009

programme, while the remaining groups are being taught the way children have been taught in Georgia for decades, according to an old-fashioned style where pupils sit quietly and learn answers off by heart. UNICEF supported the Centre for Education Initiatives to implement the in- ternationally-recognized Step-by-Step programme of the Soros Foundation in 46 kindergartens in 11 regions of Georgia, aiming to improve conditions for children and to transform those kindergartens into model institutions. Already some of these 46 kindergartens have proven their capacity and readiness to act as resource centers and disseminate the methods of the Step-by-Step programme to other kindergartens. In the Step-by-Step programme young children learn by play; closely monitored by their teachers they lead their own process of interactive learning. Research has shown that as a result, children are more conﬁdent, independent and self-sufﬁcient. Shorena Pularia, the director of the Rustavi kindergarten No 31, says that the children being educated according to the Step-by-Step system are open and capable of expressing their opinion, while those who struggle along in the old system are shy and submissive. Lali, the teacher of one Step-by-Step group, looks round the room where the children are playing at different ‘centres’, learning literacy, motor, cognitive and communication skills through play at the family centre, the reading and writing centre, the drama, painting and building centres. She explains what a difference the new method has made. “These kids have no complexes and they’re more independent.”

The kindergarten’s child psychologist explains that children educated according to the old method have a great deal of knowledge, but seem to feel UNICEF/Geo-2008/Marika Amurvelashvili ©

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 19 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

shy and less free than the other kids, who, she says, are better prepared physically, emotionally and psychologically for school.

So far 330 teachers in 11 regions in Georgia have been trained to provide child-centred education at pre-school level.

Following this successful implementation of the project the Centre for Education Initiatives prioritized the extension of the project and in 2009/10 UNICEF will support this extension to almost all regions of Georgia and 56 kindergartens throughout the country will become model resource centers capable of disseminating the methodology further.

REAL LIVES The right to quality education By Guy Degen

April, 2009, TBILISI, Georgia:

Every child has the right to quality education to develop their per- sonality, talents and mental and physical abilities. UNICEF is helping local Georgian municipalities to offer pre-school education to disadvantaged children who previously were excluded from the education system.

“I think it's important for every child regardless of where they're coming from in the country; regardless of their economic and social background, disability or ethnicity, that they have access as soon as possible to a stimulating early learning environment such as a kindergarten,” said Benjamin Perks, UNICEF Georgia Deputy Representative.

At Tbilisi's No.1 Kindergarten new early education methods are well established.

For ﬁve-year-old Irina Julukhadze, a caring and stimulating learning environment has made a big difference in her life.

Irina's family ﬂed their home in the village of Achabeti last year because of the conﬂict between Russia and Georgia. Her family is still living in a collective centre for internally displaced people.

At ﬁrst, Irina found it hard to in- teract with other children. Now, her teachers say she's thriving. © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen

20 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

The importance of teacher training

Through better teacher training UNICEF is aiming to not only improve teaching methods but show teachers how to identify learning difﬁcul- ties or signs of trauma a child might be experiencing.

“Training enables teachers to learn how to develop individual plans for children, how to consider children’s individual needs and talents, and how to apply it in classes,” said Teona Chulukhadze, Director, Tbilisi No.1 Kindergarten

By supporting Georgia's Ministry of Education to develop a comprehensive policy for early childhood learning, UNICEF is helping to ensure that Georgian children have access to the education and care they need.

Making schools safer In response to the alarming growing violence among young people, the Mi- nistry of Education and Science with the support of UNICEF started to develop a ‘Safe Schools’ programme, and UNICEF and the Council of Europe jointly launched the initiative ‘Violence Reduction in Schools Programme’.

“UNICEF is extremely concerned by the outburst of violence in schools,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Representative in Georgia, at the launch of the Safe Schools programme. “We do think that effective actions should be undertaken to address this issue, promote positive, child-friendly be- haviours in schools and avoid punitive measures that may trigger further deterioration,” she added.

An expert committee visited Georgia to assist the Ministry of Education with the development of a National Policy, Strategy and Action Plan on reducing violence in schools.

An emphasis was put on adopting international standards laid out by the Council of Europe and UNICEF to the speciﬁc situation in Georgia and experts worked closely with the Ministry of Education and Science to design a cascade training programme for school teachers and managers.

16 lead facilitators were taught about how to understand and prevent violence in school and trained to share their knowledge with other teachers and school principles. The process of bringing these facilitators round schools to disseminate their knowledge was unfortunately interrupted by the ﬁghting in and around South Ossetia, Georgia in August 2008, but has since been resumed.

The Council of Europe is due to send a fact-ﬁnding mission to Tbilisi to build on work already done, identify areas for improvement to introduce new initiatives which will contribute to the long-term psychological rehabilitation of children affected by the 2008 hostilities and to build the capacity of teachers and community leaders to prevent children falling victim to violence.

The ‘Safe Schools’ and ‘Violence Reduction in Schools’ programmes aimed to respond to and build on the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children, which provides a comprehensive global view of the range and scale of violence against children.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 21 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Child protection

Protecting children – reforming Child Welfare 2008 saw some key developments in the reform of the Child Welfare system in Georgia, with the move of the system from the Ministry of Education and Science to the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs bringing together the functions of social services, provision of health services and targeted cash assistance under one roof thus boosting prospects for improved coordination of children’s services.

The new Government Child Action Plan 2008-2011 is more ambitious than the previous one - which had a narrow focus on deinstitutionalization –and now seeks to address other areas including child poverty and violence against children.

Recent data suggest a decrease from approximately 5,000 children in state institutions in 2005 to 2356 in 2008. This has been managed

22 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 through stronger gatekeeping systems, expansion of statutory social work interventions and an increase in alternative service provision, including foster care, day care and small group homes. However, gaps remain in the regulation function (of social workers and service providers), monitoring capability (to ensure protected environments for deinstitutionalized children in biological and foster families), and data collection (number of children in non-state services, etc).

Within this context Child Care Standards for family support and family substitute services were developed in collaboration with the EU and the Governmental Commission on Child Protection and Deinstitutionalisation and its Technical Secretariat and the process was ﬁnancially and technically supported by UNICEF. The Standards cover the areas of family substitutes, family support and statutory services. The family substitutes and family support standards have already been approved by the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs.

The standards, which it is envisaged will enter into force over the 2009-11 period, were translated into Russian in order to be disseminated in ethnic minority regions.

To strengthen the quality of social work services to clients, a working group on social work regulation, which beneﬁts from UNICEF technical assistance, has reviewed the regulation of the profession, in order to recommend the format through which social workers can be held accountable, monitored and strengthened. This work is underpinned by close collaboration between juvenile justice and child care systems and practitioners.

Mandatory referral procedures were developed, with technical assistance from UNICEF and other key partners, in 2008 and the Ministry of Education and Science accepted them and piloted them throughout the country in eight locations. The procedures aim to determine cases of child abuse and neglect, plan interventions and ensure referral to the right agencies. Following the piloting, which is supported ﬁnancially by UNICEF, the procedures should be given a ﬁnal shape and made mandatory. After the August crisis it was decided that the procedures should be piloted in villages as well as in cities, including in Shida Kartli villages, where the main supporter of the pilot scheme is UNICEF.

Regional development plans A recent initiative saw the UN agencies joining forces in one region in order to show what could be achieved when they combined their priorities and capabilities. Kvemo Kartli was chosen as the target region due to its ethnic diversity and the presence in the region of some alarming indicators including the lowest rate of birth registration in the country.

UNICEF invited international consultants to develop a special tool for assessing the situation of children in all municipalities of Kvemo Kartli and also worked with the UNDP to have children speciﬁcally included in the latter’s regional development strategy.

Child action plans were drafted for every municipality in collaboration with informal local working groups and discussions were held to raise the awareness of local authorities on the importance of implementing the plans. UNICEF is working with state agencies in order to facilitate local authority budgeting changes needed to put the plans into action. Implementation

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 23 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

of certain activities included in the plans has already started in several municipalities and is supported by local authorities, Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs and UNICEF.

UNICEF in collaboration with the EU is funding a number of Ministry of Education and Science social workers in Kvemo Kartli and Shida Kartli regions.

Violence against children in Georgia In response to the UN study on Violence against Children UNICEF commissioned the National Study on Violence against Children in Georgia in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs and Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation. The study aimed to identify the extent and nature of violence (physical, sexual, emotional and neglect) experienced by children. The survey sample included children in IDP centers, residential institutions and schools.

An additional component of the Study was the National Study on School Violence conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Sci- ence of Georgia. The Study describes the situation of child abuse and neglect in schools and adjacent areas.

Both Surveys were conducted in 2007-2008 by the NGO Public Health and Medicine Development Fund in collaboration with the International Society for Prevention of Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN).

The ﬁndings of the study revealed that quite a high percentage of children were found to be suffering different types of physical and psychological violence, from low level, culturally accepted to severe forms of violence.

“I would like to highlight that the situation in Georgia is not different from the rest of the countries where the study was conducted,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Georgia Representative, noting a number of alarming issues in Georgia such as peer pressure in schools and a high rate of so called ‘baby shaking syndrome’.

“It is important for parents to know that using violent methods for child rearing will result in children themselves applying the same violent way of solving the problems.” Barberis said.

About 70 per cent of children were found to be victims of some form of violence, including less serious forms. The use of physical and psychological punishment starts at home at an early age, and occurs despite an apparent willingness of parents to use positive management techniques in rearing their children.

The study found that older children experienced violence both at home and among their peers at school and elsewhere. In schools and residential institutions peer violence emerged as the main problem, but not the only one – children suffer psychological and physical violence at the hands of adults.

According to the study’s recommendations there is a need to raise awareness about the extent and consequences of violence against children among the public and professional communities. Building on existing strengths, such as parent’s willingness to use non-violent discipline methods and children’s positive views of schools and parental support is critical.

24 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Protecting and including disadvantaged children “Don’t Call Me a Street Child” - The ﬁrst comprehensive assessment of street children in Georgia

In 2008 UNICEF collaborated with Save the Children and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on an extensive study of street children in Georgia. The study focused on children 0 to 18 years of age who were observed in the street in Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Rustavi and Batumi. It found that there are approximately 1,600 such children in the country, with a concentration in big cities. Most street children are not orphans.

Many extremely poor families prefer their children to earn money than to go to school and the study revealed that 90 per cent of street children have to earn an income for themselves or their families. Half of all street children are illiterate and 60 per cent have never entered a classroom.

Services for street children in Georgia remain poor and UNICEF carried out an assessment of a shelter for street children in Tbilisi in order to work on a strategy to improve conditions there.

The ﬁndings of the survey were disseminated and widely used by other organisations concerned with the welfare of street children.

Rehabilitated Senaki Institution for Children with Disabilities Deinstitutionalisation is a key priority for child welfare reform in Georgia and 50 per cent of children living in institutions since the deinstitutionalisation drive started have already been moved out of them. However, UNICEF still works to improve conditions and services for those children who continue to live in institutions, many of whom are disabled.

A UNICEF assessment carried out two years ago on all residential institutions for disabled children in Georgia showed that conditions were worst at the institution in Senaki in the west of the country. Today the conditions in which the residents of Senaki used to live are still visible in a now mostly disused wing of the institution, full of broken ﬂoorboards, dark rooms, decrepit beds and lacking heating or hot water.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 25 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

But since May 2009 the residents of Senaki live in a transformed building of the institution refurbished with the support of UNICEF German National Committee and German TV company RTL, who with the participation of their Goodwill Ambassador, model Eva Padberg, raised money to help Senaki during the annual RTL fundraising marathon in 2007. The institution was equipped with new heating and water and sanitation systems and provided with the relevant furniture and necessary supplies.

Home to over 100 people, those who live there now have clean, newly- painted bright bedrooms with only ﬁve beds each, where every bed has a different quilt and cuddly toys sit by the bedsides. By day the residents play in warm rooms with more toys and music players, as well as games to improve motor and cognitive skills.

Senaki houses 61 residents who are over the age of 18 and 38 children, but the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, which took over responsibility for institutions like Senaki from the Ministry of Education and Science, is planning to move the adults to another residence, in accordance with international norms for taking care of disabled people.

Deputy Director of the Senaki Tea Simonia says that when the adults go there will be an inﬂux of new children from infant houses, which take care of disabled and abandoned children and orphans up to six years old as well as from other institutions for children with disabilities.

The rehabilitation of the Senaki institution was completed in May 2009 UNICEF/Geo-2009/Jens Kalaene, © German Press Agency (dpa) and as Simonia said the refurbishment was a huge success.

26 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

“It is totally different, the children don’t want to go outside now they’re so happy in their comfortable rooms,” she told us as she showed us round the new facilities, which include a playground with brightly-coloured swings and slides, a mother-and-child room to encourage parents to visit their children and even spend the night with them, sparkling new bathrooms fully equipped for disabled children, and modern classrooms.

“The conditions here before were inhuman,” she continued. “I couldn’t even ask the caregivers to do more, because it was impossible to do more in such conditions. Now I have more hope.”

Simonia is committed to improving conditions at Senaki and says that it is not just about money but about the motivation of the staff.

UNICEF funded training for caregivers which was provided by the First Step Foundation, an organisation with extensive expertise on the best methodologies in caring for disabled and abandoned children. First Step worked to train caregivers to provide better, more individually- tailored care for the residents of Senaki. First Step also helped to prepare the adults at Senaki for their move to the new institution.

Senaki’s residents are enjoying their new sur- roundings.

Nika, 11, one of three children in Senaki who attend regular school, told us he likes his new bed. He enjoys school, he said, and wants to © UNICEF Germany/2009/Kerstin Buker grow up to be a soldier and protect Georgia.

11-year-old Tamriko is conﬁned to bed but her intelligence and charm are unaffected by her physical struggle.

“I like the new toilets,” she said, “and the elec- tricity. Oh, I just like everything. And I love that now I can have a bath or shower every day.”

UNICEF Germany/2009/Kerstin Buker Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 27 © UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Improvements at Tbilisi Infants House and other institutions At Tbilisi Infant House, Tbilisi School Number 200 for children with disabilities, Gumati Institution for Children with Disabilities and the Kutaisi day centre “Tonusi”, UNICEF funded the local NGO Children of Georgia to train staff to assess the needs of all children and to develop individual development plans for each of them – the only tool sure to monitor and promote the best possible development of each child.

Behavioural management teams were established and Children of Georgia helped institution staff to develop and implement the plans. A positive development for sustainability saw the Ministry of Education and Science continue the funding of these teams in 2008 when the UNICEF project ended and it is envisaged that these teams will provide mobile assistance to other institutions.

Children of Georgia also facilitated the integration of some children from the institutions into mainstream kindergartens and carried out some work with the children themselves in these institutions.

At the Tbilisi Infant House, there are over 100 children up to six years old, roughly 50 per cent of whom have disabilities. UNICEF with support from the Government of Lithuania installed new heating hot water systems in the Tbilisi Infant House.

28 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

“UNICEF is closely working with the Government and the Tbilisi Infants’ House to improve the quality of services provided to its little residents.”- says Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Representative in Georgia. “The installation of the heating and hot water systems in the Tbilisi Infants’ House is an important part of a larger plan aimed at rehabilitating the whole infrastructure of the institution and ensuring the minimum acceptable care for young children. We are extremely grateful to the Government of Lithuania for its considerable support and assistance.”

Apart from the heating and hot water systems the Tbilisi Infant House is ﬁtted out with clean, good furniture and linen, toys, mobiles for babies, walkers and comfortable play pens. There is also a sensory room which was funded by volunteers at the House and is equipped with games and lights to stimulate the senses. Here occupational therapists work with the children.

“We changed many things,” said the Director of the Tbilisi Infant House Irina Bekuridze. “Before the children were dirty, they lay passively in their beds. Now they look better, but it is not enough.”

Irina is determined to give these children the best start she can in life and she is trying to organise them into family-style groups living in home-like units and presided over by a ‘big mother’, but her efforts are hindered by the high number of children coming into the institution.

A new service aims to keep numbers down through helping single mothers. Mothers who feel that they cannot bring up their child themselves can be

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 29 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

assessed and referred by a social worker to the Infants House, where they can then live with their baby in a supportive environment for 3-4 months.

Bekuridze said that this service is ‘very effective’, as are the individual development plans which were drawn up for each child, she said, with input from doctors, teachers, speech therapists and psychologists. She is also enthusiastic about the fact that the children from the House now attend mainstream kindergartens.

Preparatory work was done by Children of Georgia with children at the Infant House and the children already enrolled at the kindergartens, along with their parents and teachers, to ensure good integration of children from the Infants House in the mainstream kindergartens.

UNICEF and other organisations are working in the Infant House to maintain an effective gate-keeping system to keep resident numbers as low as possible.

Reforming the juvenile justice system – giving new chances to young people Recent years saw major progress made in sphere of juvenile justice. Continuous UNICEF support to the Ministry of Justice on this subject has improved awareness, willingness and readiness for the development and implementation of a comprehensive reform strategy.

The document called ‘Main Directions for Juvenile Justice System Reform’, was drawn up with UNICEF input.

The government also announced the formation of the ‘Criminal Justice Reform Inter-Agency Council’ which developed a juvenile justice strategy and reform policies and legislation, will train those who work in the juvenile justice system and introduce and expand rehabilitative programmes for juvenile inmates and probationers.

Juvenile justice reform work is to be carried out during a three-year project, launched in June 2007, to be implemented by the Ministry of Justice with the support of UNICEF and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

“Detention should be the last resort for children in conﬂict with law,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Representative in Georgia. “This is an opportunity to introduce rehabilitation programmes as alternatives to imprisonment, and to bring the existing system of juvenile justice administration into line with international standards,” she added.

A key part of the reform and the three-year project on juvenile justice strategy is changing how professionals in the criminal justice system go about their work and to this end a new training curriculum was developed.

Dealing with international and domestic legislation as well as psychological and educational issues of child development, the curriculum was adopted by the High School of Justice, meaning that from now on all future judges there will gain vital knowledge on juvenile justice.

30 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen ©

In partnership with the High School of Justice, all existing criminal judges in Georgia, as well as 300 selected prosecutors, 100 Legal Aid lawyers and 80 more lawyers from the Georgian Bar Association were trained according to this new curriculum.

Trainings Georgia-wide will continue over the next few years, which will also see police and prosecutors being trained on how to interview children.

In a move which widens the alternative to custodial sentences for children in conﬂict with the law, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the Penal Reform International, supported by UNICEF, piloted rehabilitation schemes in Batumi, Rustavi and Kutaisi.

At present probation is the only alternative to prison for children convicted of a crime in Georgia and the pilot schemes saw juvenile justice support centres set up in the three cities.

At the centres social workers cooperate with young probationers and their families in order to help them draw up individually tailored education and skills training plans which will help the children return to society where they can become active, positive members.

It is envisaged that the pilot rehabilitation programmes will lead to the development of strategies and frameworks to ensure that, where appropriate, young people are not prosecuted for minor and less serious offences and if prosecuted are given a non-custodial sentence.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 31 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Partnership with the European Union on reforming the juvenile justice system A two-year partnership project, aimed at supporting the Government of Georgia in reforming the penitentiary and probation system, was launched in March 2009. The project, called “Reform Options for the Penitentiary and Probation Systems for Convicted Child Offenders in Georgia” is implemented by the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and UNICEF with the financial support of the European Union. The aim is to establish a juvenile justice system which is focused on rehabilitation and reintegration of children in conflict with the law into society. “One of the priorities of our Ministry is the reform of the juvenile justice system. It is of paramount importance that after having served a sentence, a minor returns to society as a fully-fledged member”, said Mr Dimitri Shashkin, the Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance. “The protection of human rights and the supremacy of law is one of the priorities of the EU-Georgia partnership programme”, said Ambassador Per Eklund, Head of Delegation of the European Commission in Georgia. “Re- forming the juvenile justice sphere is one of the main priorities of the newly created Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance. European Union is ready to support the Government of Georgia in these endeavours. UNICEF expertise and EU financial assistance of EURO 1,270,000 will be an important contribution to the reform process undertaken by the Government,” added Per Eklund. “The project will allow us to introduce rehabilitation programmes as alternatives to imprisonment, and to bring the existing system of juvenile justice administration in to line with international standards. The Ministry of Cor- rections and Legal Assistance is leading the process and we would like to express our gratitude for their collaboration. We do express our appreciation to the European Union for their support and partnership,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF Representative in Georgia. Reform of the juvenile justice system in Georgia is one of the key priorities of UNICEF and the Government of Georgia’s Programme of Cooperation. The reform envisages introduction of reintegration-focused penitentiary and probation systems and also aims at ensuring that children are not criminal- ized unnecessarily. The reform plans include programmes of prevention and diversion, and proper training for personnel dealing with juveniles in the justice system. The project will establish and prioritize programmes such as vocational training, sports activities, constructive leisure time, social skills training, legal and psycho-social support and life skills education within the penitentiary and probation facilities. The project will also ensure systematic application of conditional release of children in conflict with the law at the earliest possible moment. Within the penitentiary system the project will target convicted boys in Avchala Juvenile Detention Centre and convicted girls in Prison #5. The child probationers who are conditionally released from detention will be involved in existing educational and sport programmes. The project also envisages training of penitentiary staff and probation officers as well as promoting the necessary policy and legislative amendments.

32 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

REAL LIVES Juvenile justice by Guy Degen

RUSTAVI, Georgia:

Tornike Shubutidze darts around the city square in Rustavi with a small video camera looking for the best angles to ﬁlm passers-by.

The 15 year old is fascinated by video cameras and the art of ﬁlm- making. He dreams of becoming a cameraman and working in either television or in the ﬁlm industry.

But last year he was far from optimistic about his future.

Tornike was charged with stealing a washing machine near his family's apartment block and faced four to UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen seven years in prison for petty theft. ©

Georgia has no specialized courts for children. However, under juvenile justice reforms supported by UNICEF, Tornike was released into the care of his family on 12 months probation.

Tornike also attends courses at the Rustavi Rehabilitation Centre for Children in Conﬂict with the Law. It's one of three rehabilitation centres in Georgia supported by UNICEF to help to protect the rights of children and support them while on probation.

Along with going back to school, getting involved in a ﬁlm-making project at the centre has led Tornike to gain work experience as a trainee camera operator at Georgia's public broadcaster.

Tornike believes he's been given a second chance in life and now has a future.

“First of all, I will certainly buy a camera, will spend more time to learn, will work more and try to become a cameraman,” he said.

At the centre each young probationer is thoroughly assessed. Social workers consult their family and an individual education and skills training plan is developed to help them re-integrate into society.

“The centre is unique,” said Marika Natadze, Team Lead of the Rustavi Juvenile Justice Support Centre.

“It offers different kinds of services, including educational and vocational training, activities focused on crime prevention, and on helping children to return back and to be better reintegrated into society.”

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 33 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 Emergency response in child protection and education

Protecting and educating children directly affected by the war

Among the tens of thousands of people who remain internally displaced following the ﬁghting in and around South Ossetia, Georgia in August 2008 are thousands of children who were trauma- tized by the war and the ﬂight from their homes with their parents.

Many of the displaced found themselves resettled by the Georgian government in rapidly-build hous- ing settlements. In Tserovani, one of the largest of these settlements, located between Tbilisi and Gori, one of the functional, identical houses has been transformed.

Outside the building some land has been fenced off to make a garden where a sandpit, swings and slides wait temptingly for small children. A hand carved, wooden sign near the front door of the house proclaims that this is a kindergarten.

Set up by The Elizabeth Gast Foundation with the support of UNICEF, this kindergarten aims to foster children’s creativity and restore their psychological and social wellbeing.

The rooms of this small house have been equipped with toys, small chairs and tables and art materials. Children’s drawings adorn the wall.

The kindergarten, where young children learn various social, motor and communication skills through play, caters for up to 25 three to six year olds and classes are led by qualiﬁed teachers.

An atmosphere of calm warmth and gentle ex- citement prevails in the kindergarten – it’s clear the children love their teachers and their surroun- dings.

REAL LIVES Child friendly spaces by Guy Degen

In the village of Lamiskana people live with an ever-present tension.

Their village lies a few hundred metres from territory under dispute between Georgia and breakaway South Ossetia.

Many villagers witnessed the violence of last year's conﬂict between Georgia and Russia - including children.

But having somewhere to socialize and have fun is helping many children cope with the trauma they've experienced and the stress war has placed on their families.

A child friendly space

Inside the village school laughter and music echo down the corridors. In one classroom Georgian actor Bacho Chachibaia is conducting a drama workshop.

Children of all ages are following his improvised movements closely. Along with painting and sculpture, it's one of several activities offered to children outside of school hours by the Elizabeth Gast Foundation with support from UNICEF.

For 17 year old Pikria Totosashvili, drama classes and writing poetry in this child- friendly space have made an enormous difference in her life.

Pikria said she tries not to think about the conﬂict.

“This place has helped us to overcome trauma we experienced during the war. Children were worrying a lot and we had enormous stress. Children are trying to ignore the fact there's a conﬂict, soldiers are still around and something could hap- pen,” she said.

Helping displaced children

It's estimated that some 30,000 people remain internally displaced following last year's conﬂict. New settlements house UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen people who are unable to return to their © homes.

But the settlements often isolated and offer little in the way of ameni- ties for children. For adolescents there are few places to socialise and young children do not have access to playgrounds.

Newsletter, 1 (12), 2009 35 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Together with the Elizabeth Gast Foundation, UNICEF is establishing kindergartens to give displaced children access to early childhood education - a fundamental child right.

Four–year-old Mari ﬂed the village of Akhalgori with her parents and now attends kindergarten near her tempo- rary home in Tserovani Settlement UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen for IDPs. © She's one of thousands of displaced children trying to adapt to a new a life after war. The new kindergarten also serves as a resource centre for parents in need of advice on health, nutrition and protection.

For Mari, the kindergarten is a welcoming child-friendly space.

“Often we forget that play, learning, exploration and communication are the essential business of children - this is what children do with their lives,” said Benjamin Perks, UNICEF Georgia Deputy Representative.

Mr. Perks added that child-friendly activities and a stimulating learning environment helps to get children 'back on track' and can challenge the impact war has upon children.

Supporting children affected by con- ﬂict also helps to ensure their rights to protection and development. UNICEF and its partners aim to continue supporting child-friendly spaces for children to learn, socialize and recover from the stress of war and displacement.

36 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Child-friendly spaces throughout conflict-affected zones The kindergarten in Tserovani is just one child-friendly space of up to 60 set up in response to the conflict by UNICEF in partnership with the Elizabeth Gast Foundation, International Rescue Committee and World Vision in collective centres, villages in the conflict-affected areas and IDP settlements. In these spaces children between the ages of 3-17 play, take part in sport and artistic activities, avail of formal and informal education and develop their life skills in settings designed to help them escape their worries and recover from the trauma inflicted by the fighting. The centres also mean that parents and caregivers can go about their daily activities knowing their children are well cared for; they also act as resource centres which support parents and provide advice on different aspects of their children’s wellbeing. In Sakasheti, one of the villages affected by the August events, UNICEF and World Vision set up a child-friendly space in the local school. A wing of a forbidding, dilapidated Soviet-style school building has been transformed into a light, welcoming space with new furniture, toys and learning resources. This centre caters for about 70 children from kindergarten to the age of twelve. The older ones have school lessons in the adjoining classrooms and come here after lessons to have lunch, do their homework, play and learn more through activities. “The children of our villages were so stressed and upset after the war,” said Nana, one of their teachers. UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili ©

“This was planned as a short-term project but the children did so well here that the parents asked for it to be extended, and it was,” she continued.

The kindergarten for the younger children is the ﬁrst kindergarten in the village in 20 years, she tells us. Here they learn through play and enjoy the toys and bright colours surrounding them.

Children young and old here express their feelings of fear and trauma over the war.

“When they draw, they often draw the war,” said caregiver Ma- nana.

“These children saw bombs and Russian soldiers. Even before the war this was a very poor village and these children had so little. This is the best possible present for them,” she said.

The teachers and caregivers beneﬁted from training in hygiene, child psychology and children’s rights.

Parents are relieved to see their children thriving in the centre, which has an intake covering two villages, according to teachers at the centre. It is hoped that the centre will be able to bring in more children, some from nearby IDP settlements. It currently has a waiting list of over 150 parents.

12-year-old Gerondi ﬂed with his family from his village when © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili his house was set alight. He seems comfortable and relaxed now with his peers and says he likes the centre.

His satisfaction is echoed by his friend Lasha.

“It will be really nice if the project is extended, it’s nice to be here,” he said with a smile.

38 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Education, training and school materials UNICEF, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, and the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, undertook training of teachers on practical use of crisis psychology, helping them to recognize signs of post-war trauma and to understand whether and how to deal with these problems in the classroom or to refer children on for further consultation.

This process was conducted in phases by ﬁrst equipping psychosocial professionals and trainers who then went on to train teachers.

Overall, approximately 2,200 teachers from 64 schools in Gori, Tbilisi and Rustavi received the training, meaning that approximately 30,000 children have beneﬁted or will beneﬁt from this initiative.

At the start of the August crisis, IDPs were moved into all possible public buildings, including schools and kindergartens.

According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 164 schools damaged and/or affected by the conﬂict were provided with basic school materials through provision of UNICEF School in a Box and Recreational Kits to cover 78,000 conﬂict-affected children. The School in a Box is part of UNICEF’s standard response to emergencies and contains supplies and materials to UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili ©

ensure the rapid continuation of children’s education when emergency strikes. The Recreational Kit is a sports-based kit designed to allow children overcome their trauma through sport.

About 100 schools in the conﬂict-affected zones were damaged and much furniture and equipment was looted during the August ﬁghting. The most urgent needs of schools in the region were new textbooks and infrastructure repairs.

In October 2008, in order to get children back to school, UNICEF collaborated with Save the Children in a special book drive for new and used textbooks, as a result of which up to 10, 000 textbooks were collected for conﬂict-affected primary grade students.

A further 30,000 new textbooks were provided to 5,000 conﬂict-affected and vulnerable children in the regions of Gori, Kareli, Kaspi and Khashuri as well as to IDP children living in the various collective centres of the capital Tbilisi. The procurement of new textbooks was a joint effort of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, UNICEF, World Vision, The Ministry of Education of Estonia, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, The Alma Adamkus Charity and Support Fund of Lithuania and the International Res- cue Committee.

40 UNICEF in Georgia 2009

Mine-risk education in conﬂict-affected zones

UNICEF in cooperation with the HALO Trust and the Ministry of Education and Science launched a programme which aimed to teach 46,000 children in 180 schools in Gori, Kareli, Kaspi and Khashuri about the dangers of unexploded land mines and other remnants of war. With many unexploded devices left in the fields of the conflict zone, the risk to children not equipped with the knowledge to recognise such objects is all too real. The mine-risk education project, within the framework of which a special curriculum and learning materials illustrating the danger of unexploded objects was designed, teachers were trained and special lessons launched in the conflict-affected zones, was funded by the German government.

REAL LIVES Mine Risk Education By Guy Degen

KIRBALI, Georgia:

Life is gradually returning to normal for most children at the Kirbali Village School near Gori following last year's conﬂict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia. However, for 15 year old student Soso Khirkheli, the war has left a terrible legacy he must learn to live with. Soso's left hand was blown off while he was handling a grenade- like explosive earlier this year. Soso says he found the explosive in the gutter near his school. He put it in his pocket. In class it felt warm so he went outside hoping UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen to throw it away. © It detonated just as he removed it from his pocket. “No, I did not know what it was. If I knew I would not pick it up. I picked it up like other boys and I did not know what it was,” said Soso.

Understanding the risks of war affected areas

Soso is not a lone victim, several children have lost limbs in the Shida Kartli district near Gori.

UNICEF is working closely with the Halo Trust and the Georgian Ministry of Education to ensure that children understand the dangers of unexploded ordinance; that they can recognize warning signs and know what to do if they see an object that looks dangerous.

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UNICEF's Mine Risk Education programme aims to teach nearly 50, 000 young people in the Gori region about the risks of war-affected areas. Special learning materials are now available in schools and for children to take home to their families.

“With minimum intervention with teachers, by giving them the basic skills to train children, and through other methods such as animation and child-friendly activities, we can make sure every child knows about the dangers out there,” said UNICEF Georgia Deputy Country Representative, Benjamin Perks.

Danger to local people

In an orchard near the village of Brotsleti de- mining teams from the Halo Trust are doing the slow and careful work of clearing unexploded ordinance such as cluster munitions which pose a deadly risk to local people.

Clearing the explosive remnants of war in the region is likely to take time.

Halo Trust clearance expert, Nick Smart, says it's important that children are taught the dangers of unexploded ordinance such as cluster bombs.

“They're not to be touched and they're not play things... Obviously here you can see we've got farmers’ ﬁelds, people are going to be working, and if they're ignorant of the items then obviously that's going to be dangerous to them,” he said.

Right to care and protection

All children affected by armed conﬂict have the right to protection and care.

Before losing his hand Soso enjoyed sports and was a keen boxer. He hopes that somehow he may be able to continue boxing training in future. For now he's thankful that he survived the accident with the grenade and did not hurt any of his classmates.

“Everybody saw what happened to me. I wish nobody could be in my place and I tell my friends not to touch things and to remember what hap- © UNICEF/Geo-2009/Guy Degen pened to me.”

UNICEF will continue working with the Georgian Ministry of Education to ensure that children in war-affected areas do not become victims of landmines and explosive remnants of war.

UN Committee on the Rights of the Child discusses Georgia Report May 2008 saw the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child review Geor- gia’s reports on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratiﬁed by Georgia in 1994. The government of each signatory state of the convention reports to this Committee every ﬁve years and an alternative report for each country is provided by local NGOs. The latter report incorporates comments from UN organizations. UNICEF supported the reporting process not only in the comments it made but also by helping leading Georgian NGOs, headed by Every Child in Geor- gia, to develop the alternative report, which was considered to be one of the best among the alternative NGO reports by the UN Committee on Child Rights. Following the review of Georgia’s reports, the Committee outlined its main issues of concern, which were the lack of a coordinating body at Govern- ment level for monitoring the implementation of the Convention in Georgia and the presence of some gaps in legislation concerning children.

Juvenile justice was a big issue and the Committee recommended that the Government bring the Georgian system fully in line with the Convention.

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It is to be noted, however, that the recently-launched reform in this area, which is supported by UNICEF, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Nether- lands and the European Union, will facilitate crime prevention and help the condition of children on probation and in prisons. The Committee was very concerned that the age of criminal responsibility in Georgia had been lowered from 14 to 12. The Government is now taking some steps to reverse this move. Further recommendations from the Committee included securing human and financial resources at the Child Rights’ Centre at the Public Defender’s Office, strengthening of the state’s data collection capacities on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and specific recommendations in the areas of non-discrimination, civil rights and freedom, family environment and alternative care, education, culture and leisure activities and special protection measures, including those relating to refugee and internally displaced children. The Georgian Government is due to submit its next report to the Committee in July 2011.

Reporting on children in Georgia In 2008 UNICEF collaborated with the Tbilisi State University on the pro- duction of a training manual and course on ‘Reporting Children’ which was integrated into the undergraduate curriculum at the journalism faculty at the State University as well as at the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management. “Reporting on children’s issues requires speciﬁc knowledge and understanding of international standards. We have to carefully analyse each word or phrase, taking into account the way they may affect the whole life of a child and everything we say about children should go through additional scrutiny and consideration. I do hope that the training course on reporting children will help imbue a new generation of journalists with a high sense UNICEF/Geo-2008/Marika Amurvelashvili ©

44 UNICEF in Georgia 2009 of responsibility and professionalism,” said UNICEF Georgia representative Giovanna Barberis. The manual was produced to help media professionals to generate responsible coverage of children, to protect the guidelines and ethical norms on reporting children designed by the Interna- tional Federation of Journalists as well as to consider children’s rights in their daily work. The manual is based on the handbook for media professionals “The Media and Children’s Rights” developed by UNICEF in collaboration with the MediaWise Trust, a UK-based media ethics organization. It was adapted to the situation in Georgia by a working group of professors from the participating universities. The manual consists of three publications - guidelines for teachers, a manual for students and case studies. The Students’ manual intends to strengthen journalists’ understanding of children’s rights and to suggest how the issue can generate news stories and features for print and broadcast media. The Guidelines for Teachers combines special teaching instructions, expertise, tests, handouts, homework assignments and role plays for the practical exercises and seminars. The case studies analyse examples of reporting on children to trigger further discussion around ethical norms and standards. The manual is now being thought in a number of Tbilisi universities and was shared with the Journalists Schools in Kutaisi and Batumi.

Reporting on children – situation analysis UNICEF commissioned research revealed that Georgian media lack overall professional standards, which should be used by journalists and media managers while reporting on children. A study on promoting media ethics and journalistic professional standards while reporting on children called ‘Ethical reporting on children in Georgia – Situation Analysis’ was presented at the media forum attended by leading journalists and news producers of Georgia on 20 February 2009. The main idea of the media forum was to generate a discussion on the topic and to identify next steps on how to further enhance child-friendly reporting in Georgia. The study was carried out in May-July 2008 with UNICEF support in order to obtain evidence on current child-friendly reporting practices in Georgia. The study was conducted by Zviad Koridze, an independent Georgian journalist. One of the major issues observed in the Georgian media today is the absence of an overall code of ethical norms as only a few media outlets practice their own codes but they fail to create a favorable climate. Another observation is that stereotyped reporting on children dominates the Georgian media. According to the study, it is a common practice to publish comments on unverified facts and news and opinions are not always clearly separated. Journalists do not always avoid generalization while talking about children. Diversification of information, comprehensive analyses problems as well as using multiple sources of information are other key areas of concern. Sensationalism and disclosure of the names and identities of children in conflict with law or those of victims of violence are common practices. Discriminatory and stereotyped reporting was observed in relation to street children.

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To address the above problems UNICEF participated in a Council of Europe and EU-led process in Georgia to develop and adopt the Charter of Georgian Jour- nalists' Ethics. The whole process in Georgia is coordinated by the local NGO Civic Development Institute and well-known media expert Ia Antadze. Based on UNICEF comments a special clause on children was revised and adopted at the conference with participation of Georgian central and regional media as well UK and French media experts and Council of Europe representatives. The Charter of Georgian Journalists' Ethics is now being widely discussed with Georgian media representatives and it is expected that the Charter as well as its opera- tional mechanisms will be adopted later this year.

Building advocacy skills on child-friendly budgeting and policy UNICEF is supporting a capacity-building drive in order to improve the advocacy skills of Georgian NGOs and to enable them to scrutinize Government spending from a human- rights perspective. An inaugural advocacy-training workshop was run in Georgia by Jim Schultz, a world-renowned expert on the subject, in December 2008, followed by a further session in June 2009. Through activities like the workshop, UNICEF aims to build a strong alliance of Tbilisi and regional NGOs and enhance the monitoring of human rights in Georgia. In connection with this drive UNICEF supported the Georgian Young Law- yers Association’s 2009 project ‘Young Leaders for Public Service’, which aims to increase public participation in local authority budgeting. The legal skills of 20 young lawyers or law students in each of ﬁve regions of Georgia are being expanded and their interest in engaging with budget- ary and local authority issues developed as they work as a bridge between these authorities and local citizens. Conducting face-to-face meetings, they hear about the problems people have which need to be addressed by local authorities, whom the young leaders lobby to solve these issues. The young leaders also dispense advice to citizens via a radio phone-in show. UNICEF/Geo-2008/Cliff Volpe ©

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The leaders sit in on public sessions with local authorities, where they present the concerns of local citizens, trying to foster a culture of rapid response to people’s problems and enhancing authorities’ awareness of their responsibilities to the citizens whose taxes ﬁll their budgets. The Georgian Young Lawyers Association will present reports on each region where the project is being conducted and intends to train the local authorities in how to respond to citizens’ requests, thus helping authorities to improve their services.

Partnership with the Public Defender’s Office Child rights advocacy was further strengthened when UNICEF supported a child rights expert to work in the Public Defender’s Office in Gori, enhancing the capacity of the Child Rights Centre of the Public Defender’s Office. UNICEF also supported the newly-established Civic Education Centre at the Public Defender’s Office in setting up an informal Sunday school in Kvemo Kartli. At this school 20 pupils of various ethnic origins between the ages of 14 and 16 learned about human and child rights as well as about debating skills. The sessions also aimed to foster communication between young people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Training parliamentarians on human rights and microeconomics UNICEF maintains a close partnership with the Parliament of Georgia. In partnership with the Parliament Training Centre a two week training course on human rights was launched in November 2008 to provide parliamentarians and other staff with knowledge on human rights and its practical implications. The course focused mainly on basic human rights instruments, implementation mechanisms and state party’s responsibilities. The training course on human rights was a joint initiative with other UN agencies – UNHCHR and UNIFEM. Another training course for parliamentarians and the staff of the Parliament in macro-economics and public ﬁnancial management was also organized UNICEF/Geo-2008/Cliff Volpe

in late 2008. Both courses were highly appreciated by the participants and collaboration with the Parliament’s learning centre will continue.

Photographing the aftermath of war – We Want Peace The fighting in and around South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 left terrifying images imprinted on the minds of children who witnessed the fighting. A UNICEF-run photography workshop which took place in Gori in October of that year ena- bled them to create their own set of images of the conflict and its aftermath, thus building their skills and helping them to deal with the trauma they endured. The workshop, led by UNICEF photographer Giacomo Pirozzi, equipped a group of 10-17 year-olds from the town, many of whom were directly affected by the war, with basic photography skills. Armed with UNICEF-provided digital cameras, after two days of training they went out to take pictures. The resulting striking and impressive images document the lives of those who were affected by the war, people who lost loved ones and their homes, those trying to adjust to a new reality living in collective centres, as well as the destruction brought by the war and the rebuilding drive. The photographs were presented at an exhibition at Tbilisi’s Amirani Ci- nema in March 2009, where they remained on display for a month. The children who took part in the workshop were enthusiastic about it. “I am very much interested in photography and this was my first step in the field,” said Tamo Giunashvili. “I will never forget you. You made my dream come true,” she added. “I took a photo of the sky as it brings peace,” said Melano Pisadze from Gori. “Every time I look at the sky I get comfortable and calm. I feel bad as I see burnt houses and shops. I never thought something like this could have happened to Georgia.” UNICEF/Geo-2009/Marika Amurvelashvili ©

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