GeorgiaThe first meeting between Mr. Tamaz Tevazdze, a representative of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia and Mr. Anders Levinsen, CCPA Managing Director, took place in 2001 during the regular meeting of the Sport Development Committee in Strasbourg. Anders made an OFFS presentation there which turned out to be very attractive. After the presentation, during the break, they met each other and discussed the possibilities of the OFFS program introduction in Georgia.
With the purpose of the detailed familiarization with the OFFS program Mr. T. Tevzadze together with Mr. Gaioz Darsdaze, the Head of the GFF Youth Football Development department, visited Balkans in 2002 to participate in the OFFS instructors seminar. The attended a display school which made a great impression on them. Anders received a formal letter of invitation then to visit Georgia and meet the GFF Secretary General to negotiate the OFFS program implementation in Georgia. The meeting took place in December 2002 and already in February 2003 they successfully finished the negotiation and approved the program budget. From 2003 the first 12 OFFS schools were launched in Georgia.
Within 2003-2009 we organized the OFFS operation for 91 schools in which 17.592 girls and boys, 1.283 leaders and coaches, 3.057 parents, 80 municipalities, 112 football clubs and sport schools took an active part. The aforesaid schools received 17.160 footballs, 20.020 T-shirts, 9.100 cones, 9.100 markers and other sport inventory as a donation. What makes OFFS relevant to Georgia? Georgia is a traditionally football country. The war in Abkhazia in 1991 and then in South Ossetia, which started in 1992, brought a devastation to sport on all levels. Infrastructure, facilities, equipment were burnt, stolen or ruined. Clubs locked their premises and people simply just tried to survive. What was even worse, war drew people apart. Now former club mates and players became soldiers of three opposing armies. When the Open Fun Football Schools project came to Georgia, the project was welcome at once.
Unfortunately, the longstanding conflict between the government of Georgia and the break-away enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia escalated in August 2008 as military confrontation broke out in South Ossetia. Subsequently Russia moved military forces into Georgia territory around Gori and war broke out for five full days. The Abkhazia enclave also experienced incidents of military actions and bombings in minor scale during this period. The conflict has resulted in several waves of refugees fleeing into North Ossetia, Russia and Georgia in total amounting to around 150-200,000 people. In October Russia withdraw its forces only from the South Ossetia territory, which was under the jurisdiction of Georgia according to a ceasefire agreement signed by the two parties. One of the most important goals achieved by the OFFS program in Georgia is the successful organization of Street Sport events and the follow-up activity, which includes children from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We managed to solve, may be on the local scale so far, a very important matter – the living and training together of the OFFS instructors, leaders and trainers from Armenia and Azerbaijan on the territory of Georgia during the OFFS seminars. We would like to specially note the participation of the children from the enclaves in the joint international and border schools in Georgia. The adults and children of different nationality live, play, train together within 3-5 days during the OFFS events. We do hope that such joint seminars and schools as we have in Georgia will be implemented in Armenia and Azerbaijan in the nearest future.
The OFFS program implementation gave an impetus to the development of the female kind of sports in our countries, where the female participation in sports is still considered to be a problematic one. Beginning from 2003 up to 2009, the percentage of the girls’ participation in the OFFS operation increased from 13 up to 30%. This is a good evidence of the fact that our girls are gradually occupying a proper place in the big sport family.
We established another new organizational structure of the grassroots’ football development in our country based on the principles of humanitarian approach and democracy, which is supposed to serve our children, promoting the youth football, bringing health and joy to our future generations. The OFFS program definitely plays a positive role in the peaceful settlement of the conflicts.
Donor structure
CCPA has implemented its humanitarian OFFS program in Georgia since 2003 co-financed among others by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, UEFA, SIDA, StatOil.
We constantly enjoy also the active support of all local parties concerned, in particular, the ministry of sports, ministry of education, ministry of environment protection, municipalities, National and regional football federations, sponsors, volunteers, parents, not only in the implementation of the schools, but also in the OFFS follow-up routine activity. As a result of their active direct or indirect participation in the OFFS program only in 2009 they built 55 mini pitches with natural and artificial covering, 59 standard football pitches, 15 stadiums, 4 different sport buildings and installations. We organized 195 events for the orphans, 225 events for the children of refugees, 24 events for the children of other categories, including diabetic children, children with heart cases and disabled children. 697 parents became either sponsors or volunteers of the OFFS program.
The project indirectly involves the Georgian Football Federation, the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation of Georgia (HE Ms. Tamar Martiashvili, minister), local sponsors, UNHCR and the Danish Refugee Council.
Vision We draw extensively on the field experience and considerable network of our national OFFS staff and instructors in Georgia during project implementation. In particular the volunteers from the enclaves previously engaged in OFFS activities will play a decisive role in mobilizing the local communities, municipalities and football clubs. With regard to attain free access to the people and project sites in the enclaves, we will seek support from the Ministry of Culture, Monument Protection and Sport, the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation and the Ministry of Domestic Affairs. If relevant, assistance will be sought from UNHCR and other agencies or NGO’s operating in the enclaves including the Danish Refugee Council. A key challenge is to make sure that the activities and direct engagement of people and organizations in and from the enclaves are acceptable to the Georgian counterparts and authorities and thus not banned by the new law. The overall objective is to support and promote the process of peaceful co-existence, tolerance-building and reintegration in Georgia including the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Four critical assumptions need to be fulfilled to ensure successful project implementation:
- Peace and political stability remains in Georgia including the two enclaves.
- Mobility and communication between Georgia and the two enclaves remain relatively free i.e. the new Law of Georgia On the Occupied Territories signed by the president in October 2008 will not prohibit or out rule project activities. - Municipalities, football clubs and local communities are committed to engage in cross-community activities.
- Local volunteers are ready to complete training and engage in the cross-community sport activities in Georgia and the two enclaves.
Status We managed to integrate the OFFS program into the respective National Football Federations’ activity and we closely cooperate on the mutually beneficial basis. Moreover, the best OFFS employees were elected as members of FA “Grassroots” committees and work as manages and teachers of the “C” and “D” football coach license training courses. Today, the OFFS Manual, printed in the local languages, is the only textbook for the youth football coaches in our countries and it is in popular demand of those teachers and trainers of the football/sport schools and clubs, which are no involved in the OFFS operation. Relationships with municipalities are also very productive and expand from year to year. However, OFFS Georgia is still very much dependant on international donors' money and support.
With new strategic targets defined and a new plan and approach towards fundraising established this will hopefully solve the sustainability problem.
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