Mondo´s volunteers in Georgia

My mission in Georgia is completed. It was an unusual journey and full of unexpected twists in the story and all too exciting.  In the time of remote work with my colleagues from Association Merkuri we accomplished a lot! Especially at the beginning and throughout the lock-down period, webinars and workshops were designed and delivered to help our beneficiaries and specialists to handle and battle the pandemic "all and around". Later we focused on the monitoring and evaluations tools. These were developed to help better understand and assess the well-being of our beneficiaries in both the family centre and in the women shelter.  Following which a standardised matrix plan for children beneficiaries was created, complemented by a detailed manual including workshops suggestions and ideas to be imparted by our specialists.  The activities plan was focused on different areas from nutrition, general health, to human rights and first aid, adapted to the age and needs accordingly...

While I was writing the previous post, I wanted to find some nice picture to share with you... And I did find a video of happy moments/ movements while in Zugdidi. Georgian dancing is full of energy and breathtaking! :)

Taking preventive measures. At the beginning after the evacuation the things were a little chaotic. Different. For you, for me, for everyone in one way or the other. We were all faced with the situation of unknown, with higher levels of stress and unpredictability of what the nearest future holds. By now we all know, 2020 is full of surprises. As mentioned in my previous video post, with our partners from Merkuri Assosiation, we adapted fast to the “new normal” and soon got very busy. The format was different, yet our work and mission continued. We were so focused, and proved the situation, we can be as, and even more!! productive and efficient in our work. In the last weeks, we conducted many webinars for our staff, teachers, psychologists and social workers. The workshops and seminars focused around the topics of increasing the capacity, stress management, self-regulation, suicide prevention, psychological first aid and creative arts sessions to help reduce...

Hello Dear Friends, Here a short video post for you, live from Poland. In current times when the change is constant, it is important to continue our work and provide support to our mission in Georgia! Be safe and keep healthy. You've got this. :)

In January I was still working on translating the training materials into Georgian and researching the topic of suicide prevention, current situation and legal legislation in Georgia. And from the beginning of February, supported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and organised by the Association Merkuri, we started a series of training seminars and workshops for the law enforcement officers. The project was dedicated to the topic of stress management, psychological first aid, resilience building and suicide prevention, and it went on over the whole month of February. Each trained group received one full and one half day training. The groups were of maximally 12 participants to ensure interactive facilitation, active dialog, direct feedback and exchange with the officers. On the first day we focused on understanding stress and its specifics in the profession of a police officer. We aimed at identifying internal and external stressors. Later we discussed the effect of s...

First months in Zugdidi went by very fast. I arrived in mid-December, not long before the New Year and Orthodox Christmas which is celebrated in Georgia at the beginning of January. Home-made churchkhela - nuts in a special sause prepared for the New Years celebrations In the office my new colleagues and fellow co-workers welcomed me very warmly and we quickly found a common language. Georgian language is difficult to learn, yet I learnt few important words "gamarjoba!" which means "good day!"is my favourite one. Zugdidi is a town in the North-Western part of Georgia. It is the biggest town of the Samegrelo region. The town is known for the beautiful Dadiani palace and has a big botanical garden. A great place to go for a walk and relax on an afternoon weekend. The timetable of my work for the upcoming months is all set. It looks like the next months are going to be very busy here and I am looking forward to it :) I was surprised to see pigs ...