Children’s paintings from Georgia

On March 16 2007, the Georgian Charter facilitation team has organized a workshop with the children’s art studio.
There were two groups of children participating the project :
1. The children from the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Homeless Children, from the Risk Group (Tsisartkela, Begurebi), from a school in Ananuri and from the former orphanage of Temka.
2. The children from the Art Studio in Tbilisi (a group which also includes handicapped children).
The ages of children in both groups were from 4 to 15.

To prepare the workshops, first, the Charter team met the teachers to present information on the Charter, and the project in general (several meetings were held - first to present information to the teachers and then to develop the work plan and the strategy). The text of the Charter and the principles as a separate leaflet were presented to them. Then, several workshops with the groups were scheduled and carried out. As the groups gathered children of different ages, it was decided to present the principles of the Charter not as such, but adapting them to make them more understandable to the participants.
Once the groundwork was prepared by the teachers, a brief introductory discussion on the issue was launched. The children were given time to think about responsibility and their understanding of this notion. Many interesting ideas were voiced.

The group was keen to express their ideas and their vision of responsibility in drawings. They were given full freedom to express their thoughts. The deadline for submitting the drawings was defined : the date of the conference “Responsibility in the Global Age” was set as a target. The conference was held in Tbilisi, from May 31 to June 1, 2007, and the children’s drawings were exhibited as a part of the event.

Selected art works were sent to the European coordination team of the Charter, based in Greece, to take part in the travelling exhibitions on the theme "Environment : common good - common responsibility" in Greece, France and Brazil.

Contact with the coordinators :
Tsisso Chipashvili - e-mail : tsisso cDo yahoo.com
Maka Stamateli - e-mail : mszgc cDo access.sanet.ge