GEORGIA TODAY
SOCIETY
MARCH 31 - APRIL 3, 2017
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Spelling Success: Tbilisi BY TONY HANMER
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he had only once before in her life been to the capital, and that was five years ago, when she was in grade four. Things would surely have changed much, both for her and the city, in those years. Lizi Gerliani was back, this time accom-
panied by her English teacher (my wife) and as one of only two finalist representatives of Svaneti for the National English Spelling Competition, Georgia, for 2017. She had displayed a talent for this part of our language some years ago, when I was still my wife’s co-teacher, often trouncing pupils some years older than herself in our village school. So this was, in a way, a natural result of that. She is most fortunate to be an easy traveler like me, as some people get
carsick very easily on our winding mountain roads, needing frequent stops. They arrived just fine, Lali went to our flat, and Lizi ended up in the hotel where the 24 young contestants from grades 9 to 12 in two age groups would stay for the event. First would be a rehearsal, then the real thing, at the
State University. (I don’t know why it’s not called a Spelling Bee here; the use of “bee” as a gettogether of people with something in common goes back to 19th century USA, with the first national spelling bee winner there being an eleven year old boy, way back in 1925. There’s a rather good film based on the wonderful novel Bee Season by Myla Goldberg, about an unraveling Jewish-American family whose young girl, formerly in the “slow” class, also shows promise as a speller. Her father is rather a mysticist, and dives with her into the Kaballah to help her prepare for the National Bee. She gets in over her head, but I won’t spoil the rest. Suffice it to say that no such thing happened with Lizi. The film even has Richard Gere as the father! But the book is even better, in my opinion.) As I made a point of telling her before she left, Lizi was already a winner in all our eyes. She didn’t win in Tbilisi, but the competition was very strong, with some contestants practically using English like a mother tongue. The couple of thousand words which she pored and agonized over daily in the couple of months she had from receiving them by email up to the date of the event aren’t wasted. Indeed, this year’s winner had placed second last year, and returned.
So another thing I told Lizi, when she returned, was that she now has a whole year until next time; it’s not over yet, by a long shot! Some of those words on the lists, to be honest, I wasn’t sure of the pronunciation of myself, and I’m virtually a bibliovore… but we did what we could to help Lizi prepare, then let her go. She enjoyed herself, had some hotel luxury, got to see some of the shiny new lit-up Tbilisi, as well as escaping for a few days the comparative drudgery of farm life in a Svan village and making some new friends. And she saw what the spelling competition is, and will be like in 2018. I’m delighted with her progress, which apparently is giving her new inspiration in some of her other school subjects as well. I expect to see her back with a vengeance twelve months from now. Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1350 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/ He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
Specialized Family-Type Service Established for Disabled Children in Kutaisi
Thinking out of the Box: The Annual Public Speaking Competition from ESU
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BY KATIE RUTH DAVIES
new Specialized FamilyType Service for Children with Severe Disabilities has been established in Kutaisi by the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs with the support of USAID and UNICEF. US Ambassador Ian Kelly; Minister of Labor, Health and Social Affairs David Sergeenko; USAID Mission Director, Douglas Ball; and UNICEF Representative in Georgia, Laila Omar Gad visited Kutaisi to open the new service. The Specialized Family-Type Service is the first unit in Georgia with community-based care for young children with severe and profound disabilities and health problems. Within this service, children transferred from large state-run institutions receive 24-hour nursing care, physical rehabilitation, and community integration services. The Specialized Family-Type Service for Children with Severe Disabilities is established with the support of USAID’s $1million 5-year Protection of Children with Disabilities project, implemented by UNICEF since 2015. The goal of the project is to ensure that infants and young children grow in a family environment and receive services necessary for their individual developmental needs. A local NGO, Breath Foundation, donated a building for the Service in Kutaisi and will manage it with Ministry of Health funding and regulations.
T Source: LifeMattersMedia
Within the framework of the USAID supported project, UNICEF has been assisting the Georgian government in rehabilitating and equipping the building, developing standards of care, training of professionals like nurses and social workers who will work with the children, and linking the service with healthcare clinics and the Social Service Agency in Kutaisi. The establishment of such services will
allow the government to expand the alternative services for children with disabilities to gradually replace the model of institutional care for these children. The opening of another specialized service in Tbilisi is planned for the end of 2017. Several more similar services need to be established to have the children with disabilities remaining in large institutions transferred to a family-type environment.
his week the British Corner, Vake Park, hosted the annual English Speaking Union’s Public Speaking Competition which saw ten young Georgian English-speakers braving the stage before an audience of experts and fellow students. The aim of the English Speaking Union (ESU) is to promote friendship and understanding through the English language. The Public Speaking Competition is one of its most successful projects, with 40,000 youth from over 60 countries taking part in the Final in Londonup from just three when the project was started in 1981 (Great Britain, the USA and Australia). Georgia has participated for 20 years and has so far sent 34 youngsters aged between 16 and 20 to speak at the Finals. The jury members were the UK Ambassador to Georgia, Justin McKenzie Smith; Irakli Gulauri and his wife, and Archil Gachechiladze, Deputy Director of the Bank of Georgia. Aiming to inform persuade, entertain to inspire the audience, the ten young speakers conveyed their opinions in a variety of styles, from personal accounts to lectures and jokes. Some were clearly nervous; others were notably at home on the stage; all were admirable for their strength of character to have come so
far with both language and ability to communicate. The winners were: 1st place: Tatia Kakhetelidze, with the title: “Back to my desk." Tatia is a schoolgirl from Khashuri who says she learned English from watching movies. 2nd place: Akaki Makatsaria, with the title: "Box". 3rd place: Irakli Chkhikvadze, with the title: "Human-a limited creature or a labyrinth". The winner will go to London to take part at the ESU International Public Speaking Competition in May. The ESU was set up in London in 1918 as an independent, non-political, nongovernmental, educational charity. The Patron of the ESU is Queen Elizabeth II, the President - HRH The Princess Anne. One of the ESU’s first chairmen was Sir Winston Churchill. Georgia joined the ESU in 1998 and is supported by the British Embassy.