Just imagine: 20 displaced ethnic Georgian families settled within a large Azeri community of 6,000 households. How are they coping with the resettlement and integration challenge?
As an intern for CARE Caucasus I am making my third field trip to Kvemo Kartli. I briefly travelled through this area once before, on a dodgy marshutka between Tbilisi and Yerevan on which I could hardly see the surroundings at all because of the low windows - or was it high seats? We leave Tbilisi before noon and travel the 100 or so kilometres to Bolnisi, south of Tbilisi. Spring is finally here and the area smells fresh due to the spring blossom. At the side of the road flowers in yellow, white, pink and red spread out as a carpet and I do not know if it is me being all sentimental before leaving Georgia or if it really is fantastically beautiful here.
Our marshutka stops at the “Women and the World” office in Bolnisi, where training is being held. “Women and the World” is one of six local civil society organisations funded by CARE’s SIIMS project. It receives a grant of 10,000 USD to undertake activities which will inform IDPs of their rights, strengthen communication between IDP and local children and adolescents and enhance civil society involvement in community development. 480 people will benefit from this project in Kvemo Kartli.[mb1] The training is part of a larger integration project and aims at breaking stereotypes and joining IDPs and the Azeri community together.
The village is home to nearly 6,000 Azeri families and about 20 IDP families. No wonder the integration process here has been quite troublesome. Some of the IDPs have asked to be resettled somewhere else where integration would be easier, preferably in a Georgian village, and some families have already left on their own volition for the same reason. The main barriers to the integration process are language and long-established stereotypes. Most Azeri families do not speak Georgian and have poor Russian and the IDPs do not speak Azeri. Besides, many IDPs have a wary attitude towards the Azeri population; some even admit to having racist ideas. They would never even want their children to play with Azeri ones.
There is only one Azeri woman doing the training at the moment. Due to the traditional structures within the Azeri community many women are excluded from education. She is not married and that may be what made her ‘eligible’ to participate. It is common for Azeri women to marry early, and this results in them dropping out of school or stopping work in order to take on the role of housewife. Many Azeri women are prevented from participating in these kinds of trainings by their husbands. This is the first time I have heard about this traditionalism within the Azeri community. I knew that there are many patriarchal and traditional attitudes in Georgian society but did not know that the Azeri could be even more extreme.
The training is held in both Georgian and Russian so that all the participants can understand it and is part of a three month education programme for the IDP and Azeri populations in gender, computer and business skills. The education aims to raise the participants’ awareness of economic processes, the market economy and private ownership and how to write a successful business plan. Kvemo Bolnisi is a rather large village and the need for a barber's shop and a bakery, which are the two business plans which have emerged from this group, is large. There is a barber's shop in the village but this is only open for men, and the one proposed by this class would be open for everyone, men and women, Azeri and IDP. Women who participate in the trainings can, beside the skills gained here, benefit from CARE or other organisations' projects by applying for grants to start up small businesses and therefore it is additionally valuable to write extensive business plans.
There are only seven out of the ten people in the group here today, the rest are most probably out working in the fields. Many people are engaged in farming work right now or travelling abroad to Russia or Azerbaijan to find work. When we later go to Kvemo Bolnisi we stop and talk to some of the villagers about their opportunity to participate in the SIIMS trainings. Some of the men reject the importance of them and will not let their wives participate. However some others are more positive and believe that their spouses might be interested if we asked them.
We also meet some cute young girls who follow us around, at first at a distance but later as friends. We snap some very nice pictures together. As I leave the settlement I am thinking whether this generation of Azeri girls will have a better chance to impact their own future than their mothers and grandmothers had. There is an opportunity out there. They have just to take it.
Kia Bergkvist is a young Swede volunteering at CARE International in Tbilisi for spring 2010. Kia has degrees in Peace and Conflict Studies from Sweden and Canada. She previously worked as a Project Coordinator at Amnesty International and has been active in various humanitarian organisations.
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