Girls For Girls

‘Girls For Girls’ is a project by two juniors Maria Beshidze and Ana Tvaladze. Its main purpose is to create free space for girls where they will be able to exchange ideas, experiences and get knowledge about feminism, gender discrimination, stereotypes, and taboos. This project is a great way to be open about yourself, social problems and share experiences that others should know about. We asked the organizers a few questions to understand the purpose of this project.

When was the project ‘Girls For Girls’ launched?

ANA: We developed the idea and the program of the project in August and our first session was in September.

When did you get involved in this project? And what caused you to be part of it?

MARIAM: A friend of mine came to me with an idea and I instantly got interested in it, so I joined her and from that point, we started working on it together, after which I asked Ana to join us and that’s how we formed our organizing team. Unfortunately, the original author of the idea left our group at the beginning of 2021.

ANA: The project’s idea came from Mariam’s friend and when Mariam told me about it I got very interested because I am generally interested in gender studies. So, I helped in organizing and developing the program

What is the main purpose of this project?

MARIAM: I consider our main mission to be girl empowerment. We want to make the participants part of a community which they can trust, where they can talk freely about their problems and hear different opinions, so that they can also spread this ideas outside our small circle and have the courage to speak up against gender discrimination.

Who are the people behind this project?

MARIAM: We started this project under the umbrella of the organization Helping Hand, but currently we completely rely on our school and online space. Volunteers are students from our school as well as from outside our school who have participated previously in the project.

ANA: Mariam and I are the main organizers but GZAAT’s help is really crucial. They gave us space for our live session and later, they provided a zoom link for our online sessions so we would be able to run the project smoothly. For our first session, we won the organization “Helping Hand”’s grant, and with this money, we were able to buy board, mats, and other necessary materials for the project.

What is something that girls take/learn from this project?

MARIAM: I think that the main thing that they learn is expressing their ideas freely, as well as respecting their peers’ ideas no matter how different they might be. Because we touch on sensitive issues, this is crucial for good communication.

ANA: Besides that, they exchange ideas and learn a lot from each other they gain a lot of factual knowledge as well. This includes the history of feminism, learning about different discrimination forms, and public speaking. For our 3rd session, we added a debate course as well. Also, we invite speakers who talk about many different topics. For example, our last speaker was Mariam Khidesheli ( who actually is the new English teacher at GZAAT) and she talked about women writers and women characters in literature.

Do you think these kinds of projects are necessary, important? Why?

ANA: Yes, we definitely think so. First of all, because in most of the schools these topics aren’t discussed and people don’t get a chance to learn more about them. Also, these girls meet like-minded people and create connections.

Is there any other project(s) that you are working on, or maybe something for the future?

ANA: We are planning to raise awareness about these topics through social media, so we established the organization INVICTA. This organization includes social media platforms, our project, and publication. We are planning to make many social media campaigns and start new projects.

Edited by Elene Berelashvili