EU Mobile Info Centre begins journey across Georgia

Internally displaced school children in Tserovani IDP settlement enjoyed a fun day playing games, answering quiz questions and enjoying entertaining educational activities with a European Union (EU) official yesterday.

The special event was part of the EU Delegation to Georgia’s information campaign, which will see the EU Mobile Info Centre travel throughout Georgia and spread the word about the organisation’s activities.

The aim of the campaign is to provide Georgian citizens with easy access to information about co-operation between Georgia and the EU.

Yesterday’s event in Tserovani was attended by the Head of Operations at the EU Delegation to Georgia, Kaido Sirel, and the Deputy Governor of Mtskheta-Mtianeti region of Georgia Gocha Zeikidze.

The Head of Operations at the EU Delegation to Georgia, Kaido Sirel, and the Deputy Governor of Mtskheta-Mtianeti region of Georgia Gocha Zeikidze colouring US states' flags in with internally displaced children in Tserovani. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

The EU Mobile Info Centre provided the young students with information covering a wide range of areas, such as EU activities in Georgia, and disseminated a special Georgian language edition of the book Let’s Explore Europe.

The young Georgian students also had the opportunity to watch a documentary film about the EU, titled Travel to Europe.

Sirel and Zeikidze played with an EU map puzzle and coloured the colouring book with flags of EU member States together with the young students.

"The EU has many different flags but we are driven by the same goal,” Sirel told the young audience.

"Hopefully, very soon, the Georgian flag will be among EU flags as well.”

The colouring book was specifically designed for the EU Mobile Info Centre campaign.

Moreover, using a magnetic map the students were showed the stages of EU enlargement.

Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

The students also took part in a quiz titled ‘How well do I know Europe?’ and the winning students were presented with special gifts bearing the EU symbol by the representative of the EU Delegation to Georgia and the regional Governor.

Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

The EU Mobile Info Centre offered free access to its resources and targeted anyone who was interested in the EU, including youth, students, the rural population, experts in various fields and businessmen. The bus hosting the EU Mobile Info Centre will travel to all Georgian regions, including more than 140 schools in 2015.

Tserovani, with an IDP population of 6,433 representing 1,954 displaced families, is the largest of the 38 settlements built by the Georgian Government to house families who were displaced by the August 2008 war. The settlement is made up of 2,001 identical cement block cottages. The construction expenditure of Tserovani settlement was reimbursed through the IDP II Programme and financed by the EU (totalling €51 million).