May 9, 2008
Vato Mchedlishvili
Georgia Today

The Georgian association Hera XXI is a local, non-commercial, educational organization, run by volunteers. The goal of the union is to provide detailed information about health and a healthy way of life.

Starting in 2008, six partner organizations from Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, began the project “Health, Rights and Choice for Everybody.” The project is financed by the European Union.

“Our associate organizations are divided into two groups,” explained Medea Khmelidze, project assistant of Hera XXI. “Estonia, Latvia and Hungary are the applicant countries, and also members of the consortium, when Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova can only be partners of the mentioned countries.”

One of the main objectives of the project is to integrate developing countries into the European Union, by giving more education to the young generation about sexual and reproductive health. One more challenge the project is hoping to overcome is to pay attention to the looks that nowadays young people have in relation to global problems.

On May 5-9, an “Educational Visit” was held at the Tori Hotel that was planned in terms of the project and was hosting 15 person delegacies from different countries.

“The target of the visit is to search for elementary information about the situation in developing countries,” said Khmelidze in her interview with Georgia Today. “Our association also hopes to expose international relations as one of the most imperative things for developing nations.”

Visiting project partners are: Estonia Sexual Health Association (ESHA), Papadrez zieds (Sexual Health Association of Latvia), Women’s Rights Protecting Scientific Organization of Hungary, and the Charity Fund of Ukraine (SALUS).

On May 6 at the Tori Hotel a conference was held in which a number of health subjects were discussed. During the discussion, the young volunteers of Hera XXI had an opportunity to expose their work and talk about interesting and important topics.

“It was great to have an opportunity like this,” said Tamar Pruidze, a volunteer at Hera and a student at the Georgian State Medical University, who was pleased with her presentation. “I think I prepared a remarkable presentation and our visitors were pretty satisfied.”

Every member of the association remarked that the main advantage of the visit was the possibility for young volunteers to reveal the best of their characters.

“I think it’s wonderful that our partner organizations sent their delegations to our country,” said George Soselia, the Project Coordinator of Hera XXI. “The most pleasant thing in this visit is the chance for our youngsters to get closer with their colleagues from abroad.”