After months of waiting, I have finally arrived in Georgia! I will be here for the next 27 months as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Right now, I am going through pre-service training (PST), which is 3 months of language classes, cultural classes, and safety & security training. My primary project will be teaching English in a yet-to-be-determined village (we receive our site assignments at the end of training).
The cool thing about Peace Corps Georgia is that it is part of the Let Girls Learn program, a collaboration between Peace Corps and the White House to improve girls access to education and work with communities to promote gender equality. Georgia was part of the pilot group of countries with this program. This year, it expanded to include over 30 more countries! In Georgia, every volunteer, no matter what sector they work in, works in some capacity with gender equality. I am particularly excited about GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) - a summer camp for girls that focuses on leadership and empowerment!
Here is a link in case you want to learn more about this awesome program:
http://letgirlslearn.peacecorps.gov/
Here is a picture of my whole training group from staging in Philadelphia. We are 58 in total - 13 IOD Volunteers and 45 Education Volunteers:
When we arrived in the airport in Tbilisi, the Peace Corps Georgia staff, Deputy US Ambassador, and some current Peace Corps Volunteers were waiting to meet us. We even made it onto the Georgian news:
http://rustavi2.com/en/news/44782
We are staying at a hotel located about 45 minutes outside of Tbilisi in a village called Tskaneti for orientation. We are only here temporarily -- on Saturday we will move to villages around Gori (about an hour away) where we will stay with host families for the rest of our training. Tskaneti is beautiful -- surrounded by mountains and greenery. Here is a picture I took from or hotel window:
Unfortunately, we are not really allowed to explore the area (we haven't gotten our safety and security briefing and they don't want to be responsible for wandering volunteers). We did take a short walk around the hotel yesterday though, and made a stray dog friend who followed us the whole time. We named him Buster.
When we get to our training sites around Gori, we will be able to explore more! I am definitely excited for that! Georgia from what I have seen so far is a beautiful country!
Ok, I have to go and get my Rabies vaccine (required for all volunteers, unfortunately). Till next time!
The cool thing about Peace Corps Georgia is that it is part of the Let Girls Learn program, a collaboration between Peace Corps and the White House to improve girls access to education and work with communities to promote gender equality. Georgia was part of the pilot group of countries with this program. This year, it expanded to include over 30 more countries! In Georgia, every volunteer, no matter what sector they work in, works in some capacity with gender equality. I am particularly excited about GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) - a summer camp for girls that focuses on leadership and empowerment!
Here is a link in case you want to learn more about this awesome program:
http://letgirlslearn.peacecorps.gov/
Here is a picture of my whole training group from staging in Philadelphia. We are 58 in total - 13 IOD Volunteers and 45 Education Volunteers:
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| G-16! |
When we arrived in the airport in Tbilisi, the Peace Corps Georgia staff, Deputy US Ambassador, and some current Peace Corps Volunteers were waiting to meet us. We even made it onto the Georgian news:
http://rustavi2.com/en/news/44782
We are staying at a hotel located about 45 minutes outside of Tbilisi in a village called Tskaneti for orientation. We are only here temporarily -- on Saturday we will move to villages around Gori (about an hour away) where we will stay with host families for the rest of our training. Tskaneti is beautiful -- surrounded by mountains and greenery. Here is a picture I took from or hotel window:
 |
| The view of Tskaneti and surrounding villages from our hotel |
Unfortunately, we are not really allowed to explore the area (we haven't gotten our safety and security briefing and they don't want to be responsible for wandering volunteers). We did take a short walk around the hotel yesterday though, and made a stray dog friend who followed us the whole time. We named him Buster.
When we get to our training sites around Gori, we will be able to explore more! I am definitely excited for that! Georgia from what I have seen so far is a beautiful country!
Ok, I have to go and get my Rabies vaccine (required for all volunteers, unfortunately). Till next time!
When do you head off to meet your host family??
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