Fellowship Programme
Country
Area of Interest
Topic
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Georgia |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
In parallel with academic studies, with a MA in Social Work and a nearly completed Doctorate in Sociology, Gohar Khachatryan has charted her civic activism through a range of CSOs and Thinktanks in her native Armenia since 2016. She grew up in a provincial town and through voluntary work with a local CSO began to understand how vulnerable groups often have their rights ignored or abused. While pursuing her academic goals Gohar had the opportunity to study the dynamics of anti-discrimination. From 2018 to 2019 Gohar was a Research Fellow with the Public Policy Institute and under an EU-funded project ‘Pursuing Positive Change Through Empowering CSOs’ she analysed methods and toolkits for protecting against discrimination. Later, in 2022, Gohar spent time in Austria, supported by an Erasmus+ action, exploring mechanisms and practices for the prevention of gender-based violence and learning from challenges in the management of mental health services.
“When the call’ for applicants for the Civil Society Fellows came out in the second half of 2022, I saw a great opportunity for making a positive contribution to promote community-based approaches to mental healthcare in Armenia.”
Accordingly, Gohar set about to evaluate the policies and practices used in the establishment and operations of the first four innovative, post-Soviet ‘group homes’ in Armenia. These are residential homes for citizens who require support on specific mental health issues. The homes, in the regions of Ararat, Kotayk, Lori, and the capital Yerevan, were initially established though programmes of international organisations and now jointly run with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and cooperation with the local authorities. The long-term aim of the ‘homes’ is to support mental health sufferers to live independent lives in the community. As such, Gohar used her fellowship to look at the progress in a particular area – the extent to which the residents of the ‘group homes’ participate in local decision-making processes – and to facilitate a fully participatory research process involving the residents, the staff and management of the homes.
As a result of her fellowship, Gohar has helped to create a degree of momentum towards the goal of having ‘independent living’ as the guiding policy principle on mental healthcare provision. Having pioneered research on this subject, she has created a space for further research and investigation, and through debate on her research paper has ensured that the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will endorse the paper’s recommendations. Furthermore, the Ministry for Territorial Infrastructure has agreed to disseminate the report to its local government communities in Armenia with the intention of inspiring them to take action to be more inclusive in their decision-making.
Download the Summary of the Research Report in English:
Are Community Decision-Making Processes Inclusive for a Person with a Disability?
With regard to the rights-holders in these ‘group homes’ Gohar has also noted positive changes. Residents are now aware of their rights and the management of the homes have a better understanding of how they can improve the protection of those rights. For example, there had been a previous practice for the management of the ‘group homes’ to confiscate and safeguard the passports of residents. But, through the consultative activities of Gohar’s research, residents and staff were able to learn about the importance and usefulness for residents to keep their own passports and consequently three of the ‘group homes’ have changed their policy on this issue.
Gohar also reported that there were other bright moments generated by the interaction with the residents. During the fellowship project Gohar wanted to create some visual products (posters and flyers) to raise awareness and promote the findings of the research.
“To do this we had a designer to come up with some visual drafts and then we showed these to the residents to ask for their opinions and ideas on how to finalize the products. The posters and flyers were duly made and at the fellowships final event the residents of the ‘group homes’ saw these outputs and were so pleased to see their ideas and suggestions incorporated. This was really empowerment in action.”
Gohar will be continuing her mission to support the protection of the rights of women and men with mental health issues and more broadly engage in the defence of rights of other vulnerable groups. “Being part of civil society is paramount to this process as it means that I can investigate and advocate without the restraints that may otherwise come if I was a State employee”. As part of this mission, Gohar, with other like-minded colleagues, set up a platform called ‘Change’. Gohar hopes that this organisation will be an effective addition to the rights protection architecture in Armenia and is proud that its first advocacy action was to promote the findings from her fellowship project.
| Country | Armenia |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Georgia |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Nino Chincharauli never really expected to be a Civil Society Fellow. She spent most of her adult life involved in the creative industries and contributing to the cultural fabric of Georgia and other countries. Her creativity has manifested itself in paintings, iconography, in poems, and in fictional literature, as well as using her Spanish language skills for the publication of Spanish literature translated to Georgian. Between 2013 and 2015 she had been involved in some project work focused on her native Khevsurain culture, for example the internationally-funded ‘Youth for Preservation of the Ancient Khevsurian Authentic Clothes and Crafts’ and ‘Say It, Khevsurian Woman’ initiatives, and in recent years contributed some part-time work as a project coordinator. But it was the challenge of raising two children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)* that led Nino to apply her creativity to civic activism.
There is little understanding of autism in Georgian communities and consequently children with ASD, particularly young children, are excluded from so much of community life. “Parents with autistic kids often remove them from events and activities with other children as they are afraid of how they might be treated” explains Nino, and the owners and managers of public venues “do not make provision for the specific needs of autistic children, such as ensuring quiet and uncrowded spaces”. Furthermore, members of the general public do not always know how to discuss autism and or how to respond to it. It is a much-misunderstood condition.
In this context, Nino was inspired to raise awareness to ASD by using her artistic skills. In particular she thought that murals – wall paintings – would be a great tool for grabbing attention and at the same time could be created in a participatory way, involving community members with and without ASD. So was born Nino’s project ‘I’m Different, Not Less’, and having learnt about the activities of other Civil Society Fellows in Georgia, Nino saw that joining the alumni of Fellows would be both a way to support the implementation of her project and to mobilise solidarity for her cause.
The ’I’m Different, Not Less’ fellowship project involved gathering interest and permissions from various stakeholders in three cities in Georgia: Batumi, Kutaisi, and Tbilisi. The target was to find wall space, ideally on public buildings like schools or libraries, and to mobilise groups of parents with children with ASD to hold events to create and celebrate murals to raise awareness to autism in each city. “It was incredibly hard work, but the reaction to the three murals in the cities was, and still is, fantastic!”
As a result of the murals, produced over the spring and summer of 2023, Nino has secured local TV reporting on autism and many of the 60 parents involved in Nino’s events are engaging in ways that they didn’t think about before. Some parents have been running their own ‘masterclasses’ to improve understanding of autism; some parents have set up safe places and continuing activities to support a better understanding of autism. One parent founded an integrated space for children with disabilities in Tbilisi called “Andio Land” and plans to open similar spaces in other cities. Another parent, who is a single mother like Nino, founded a psychological therapy centre for parents of children with autism.
Nino explains that “Parents feel that they don’t need to hide anymore. And I too feel much more confident in my parenting and my interaction with others on the subject of autism”. Nino and the murals she helped to create have certainly resonated with the local communities in the three Georgian cities, and have demonstrated the importance of using art for stimulating community discussions. The murals have also led to Nino forming a closer bond to other parents with autistic children. She ends with a recent recollection:
“In Batumi, four months after unveiling the mural, a mother contacted me to say that she had spent the last few months trying to find out who had made the painting. Her autistic child came to the school and fell in love with the painting. The mother said her son couldn’t stop talking about. So, I ended up painting a portrait of the child for her mother!”
*‘Autism is a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world in varying degrees. More than one in 100 people are on the autism spectrum’ – The National Autistic Society (UK).
| Country | Georgia |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Ukraine |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |
Updates coming soon!
| Country | Georgia |
| The scope of | |
| Type of solution | |
| The technology used | |
| The budget development decisions | 0 |