“Youth for Refugees’ and Internally Displaced Persons’ Empowerment”

On June 4 and 5, 2023, within the framework of the project “Youth for Refugees’ and Internally Displaced Persons’ Empowerment”, an intensive training course was held at Tbilisi Humanitarian University.

Within the framework of the training course, a wide range of critical issues, such as, forced migration and the legal framework of refugee protection, the promotion of refugee inclusion and integration, the safeguarding of refugee rights through judicial and international cooperation mechanisms, as well as the legal status of internally displaced persons and the challenges they face were discussed by the invited experts.

The course was led by the Chief Specialist in Refugee Status Determination of the International Protection Division of the Migration Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Elizabet Kakabadze; Legal Advisor of the Department of State Representation in International Courts at the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, Gvantsa Dolbaia; Legal Advisor of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dr. Onisime Tskhomelidze and Senior Legal Advisor of the Representation of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Salome Kusikashvili.

Up to thirty students of Free University of Tbilisi, Tbilisi State University, Georgian National University, Ilia State University and Gori State Teaching University from various disciplines, including law, international relations, public administration, international law, business administration, culture and media sociology, journalism and political science, actively participated in the project.

After completing the training course, within a month, participants will work on analytical articles and recommendations aimed at resolving existing challenges related to the strengthening and integration of refugees and internally displaced persons. During the course, the author and organizer of the project, Giorgi Chachkhiani, also discussed the specifics of working on similar documents. The most exceptional papers will be presented at the summary conference in the presence of experts and subsequently published.

The project "Youth for Refugees’ and Internally Displaced Persons’ Empowerment" is implementing within the framework of the small grants of "Initiative for Youth-Led Civic Dialogue and Action" project of Caucasian House and the international non-governmental organization "International Alert", with the financial support of USAID.