In the midst of anxiety under the COVID-19, some people rise to the occasion when faced with adversity and it is uplifting to hear stories about them. As for many others it has been difficult times for the client businesses of the programme, but they have continued to help people most affected by the current crisis over the past two weeks.
Ten dairy enterprises with the Georgian Milk Mark www.georgianmilk.ge provided cheese for the medical staff of hospitals in the frontline of battling the virus as well as people under quarantine and locals in the lockdown areas in the different regions of Georgia, who have limited access to the markets.
‘It is now important to show support to each other. I was very happy to see reactions from people, who were very surprised and thankful. I think those GMM enterprises set very good example for others.’ – A GMM cheese distributor.
The Georgian Beekeepers Union (www.geobeekeepers.ge), uniting ten beekeeping associations and three commercial beekeeping companies supplied 1.2 tonnes of honey for further distribution among medical staff and vulnerable groups.
The Kakhetian Traditional Winemaking group’s (programme facilitated honey aggregator and exporter company) forty-one rooms hotel-complex is being used as a quarantine zone, the company also supplied food to locals over seventy in two regions of Georgia within a social project ‘Care for Each Other’ initiated after the virus outbreak and is now offering online sales and a free home delivery of its products (wine, compotes, jams, including, honey); the company’s webpage Old Kakheti went online to improve online sales.
These are a few examples and continuation of the kindness acts that started a month ago.
Heather Briggs, agronomist, agro-consultant on plant productivity, international expert on cheese and journalist visited Tbilisi to hold the training for agro-journalists last week. "Batumelebi" newspaper interviewed her.
For the first time in Georgia a training on agro journalism was conducted for media representatives wishing to report specifically on rural issues and news. The main purpose of the training was to fill knowledge gaps of media practitioners in crops, livestock husbandry and agriculture management and to introduce the basics of agro journalism. Heather Briggs, an international expert and member of British Guild of Agricultural Journalists - was invited to lead a 5 day training from January 26th to February 2nd. About 50 representatives of regional, national broadcasters and printed media participated in the event. The training was organized by the Georgian Regional Media Association and facilitated by the Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme.
By Helen Bradbury: Team Leader, Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme
We are in an interesting conundrum. Gender in most places has been written-in to law. Bar a few notable exceptions, every country in the world, has varying degrees of success in applying universal suffrage. Fifty countries are signed up to the CEDAW convention (the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women). On the CEDAW world map of Discrepant Government Behaviour Concerning Women, the countries shaded dark green which denotes ‘virtually no enforcement of laws consonant with CEDAW or such laws do not even exist’, are where you expect them to be and in fact they are relatively few. It is the next two categories which disturb, covering the vast majority of the globe, the mid and lighter green, where laws are partly or fully consonant with CEDAW but there is little effective enforcement or spotty enforcement of them and the issue is low priority or hit and miss. After the gains, the laws and ratifications of the last centuries it seems that we must tread very carefully indeed for we must counteract indifference, in which inertia and inactivity stop us moving forward.
Government Momentum Builds on Animal Movement Route after the years of discussion and information exchange. The biggest challenge in Georgian sheep sector – the Animal Movement Route issue has come to the point when there is a willingness and concrete plan for taking actions and reaching tangible results.
The Eco Films LTD film The Road, commissioned by ALCP KK, was shown at the BIFED - Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary on October 31, 2014. The documentary was presented in the non-competition section and highly appreciated by the audience.
In October 24th the first flocks of migrating animals went through the newly arranged bypass route in Tsintskaro village, Tetritskaro Municipality. Testing of the new route was carried out successfully - sheep, cattle, horses, donkeys, dogs and shepherds passed on the new road without any difficulties. The movement was monitored by the Tetritskaro Municipality DRR WG members and the Tsintskaro village Rep.
