It has been already three years since two most active parents' clubs in the villages of Laliskuri and Kvemo Khodasheni have been transformed into a local non-governmental organizations with the support of World Vision Georgia and Kakheti Area Development Center. Since then the organizations have been working on improvement of the living standards of the community by voicing up the challenges within the community, providing non-formal education and cultural programs for women, children and youth.

"Through our activities we try to ease the difficult living conditions of our community members and to be in the right place at the right time and address the problems caused by poverty and pandemics, trying to minimize them,"- said Tamar Khalichashvili, head of the Khodasheni village initiative group. 

Since its establishment, the organization has implemented around 70 initiatives within the community. It all started with starting up the parent clubs back in 2008 which aimed at empowering parents and sharing the best practices in early childhood development. 
In addition, the club facilitators periodically attended trainings based on World Vision International Go-Baby-Go project model, that outlines the key developmental aspects and experiences for 0-3-year-old and promotes positive parenting. The roll-out of the clubs turned out to be quite a sustainable and long-term process, which eventually led to the transformation of the most active clubs into independent community-based organizations. 

“A parent who learns how to become a better parent for their child is not only a precondition for this child to grow up in a safe social environment, but it is also a prerequisite for community development and improved well-being. The founders of the Parents' Clubs established within our program understand this very well, that is why they make a daily contribution to the development of their and not only their community. We try to support and contribute to extent possible, so that their input is meaningful,"- said Tsira Barkaia, World Vision Georgia Inclusion, Early Childhood Development and Community Engagement Programs Quality Manager.

Highlighting the role of parents and women in general at the community level is a priority for the Kakheti Area Development Center, hence it stands by the newly formed organizations from the day of their establishment and helps them to grow. In order to ensure the sustainability and success of the community organizations, World Vision Georgia partnering Kakheti Area Development Centre carried out trainings covering such topics as organizational management, grant proposal writing and management, fundraising, finance management and administration for women of the parent clubs. In addition, since 2019 World Vision funds small grant projects proposed by them annually, which gives additional opportunities for organizations to manage the initiatives more and more independently.

"The establishment of local organizations at the community level aimed at empowering community members and raising their awareness on various important topics.The existing experience and the projects that have been already implemented by these organizations have created many interesting opportunities for the community members, which gives us motive to say that this initiative successful,” - says Nana Atuashvili, Director of the Kakheti Regional Development Center.

It is also noteworthy that due to the difficulties caused by the pandemic, community organizations have made a significant contribution to the process of promoting distance learning through the recent project. They planned and implemented projects that helped develop the skills of both parents and their children in this direction. In addition, organizations are already considered as strong partners for community-based institutions such as: preschools, public schools, primary health care centers, libraries and others.  Community organizations already have strong partnerships with various local and international organizations and take care of solving various problems in their community on a daily basis.

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