It is important that civil society has the means to participate in and it. This focus topic aims at strengthening activists who are committed become properly educated on political and social decisions which affect to finding solutions to social issues in their communities and to improving political participation and education. Participants may follow these goals by supporting their community as social workers, engaging in marginalized groups or by being active politically or in a think tank. This page contains individual stories of CCP fellows and alums[VD1] .
From 2019 to 2023, special focus was placed on the topic of the “Digital Civil Society” and the opportunities and challenges which technologies such as AI bring for civil society.
I am a researcher with a focus on Soviet history in Georgia. Me and mMy organizsation and I are trying to educate people on Georgia’s Soviet past by using means of various tools such as social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Our main target audience are young people between the ages of 18 and 25, that who are most likely to become active or are already active in civil activism for Georgia’s democratic development.
There is a shortage of knowledge on Georgia’s past,; and in addition, we are standing in front of a huge amount of disinformation. Our educational system is not interested in Soviet history at all, and people have this kind of nostalgia towards the Soviet Union. This is a problem, because we are trying to build a democratic state and protect human rights. When most of the population thinks that the totalitarian past was better than the situation nowadays, it's a difficult condition to start any kind of democratic movement. The way to develop Georgia and Eeastern Ppartnership countries towards democracy, in my opinion, is a strong civil society and proper education about the past.
Nowadays, in Georgia, there is a tense atmosphere towards any kind of democratic development. A couple of months ago, the government passed the “Transparencey of Foreign Influence Law”, which poses difficulties to for me and my organizsation. During the last months, me and my friends and I have been protesting against this law. We see it as anti-democratic, and we are trying to be resilient against any kind of autocracy. Generally, I see hear a lot of critical voices among young people, which gives me hope.
At my host organizsation, Austausch e.V., I am working on a project called “Lost in Transition”. It focuses on Eastern European countries’ transitional processes from their totalitarian past to hybrid democracies, and eventually real democracies. This is a very interesting project for me, because it combines history with present-day developments. The project includes representatives from several Eastern European and post-Soviet countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. We have regular workshop meetings, and the final goal of the project is to create teaching materials about the 1990s and early 2000s for secondary schools in each of the mentioned countries mentioned. This experience has been enriching and full of networking opportunities.
