Caucasus: Apr/May '10

The authorities in a war-affected Georgian region launched a campaign to better inform local refugees about state assistance, following an IWPR radio show which outlined problems and misunderstandings about the provision of official aid.

In the wake of the programme, Refugees’ News, which aired on May 9, and follow-up coverage by other media, information boards have already been set up in the five displacement camps in the Shida Kartli region. These will be regularly updated to allow the refugees to be informed about government initiatives that are aimed at helping them.

Meri Tetruashvili, from the Tsmindatskali refugee camp, told IWPR, “Now that there are information boards here, I no longer have to wait for [officials] to visit and provide us with information. They (information boards) seem to be an insignificant detail, but they have really made life easier for so many people, including myself.”

Following the Refugees’ News broadcast, IWPR had a meeting with Natia Omadze, the spokesperson for the governor of Shida Kartli, during which they drew up a plan to launch a joint campaign to ensure that refugees are better informed about the programmes the government has undertaken so far to alleviate their problems.

"Together with IWPR, we will hold meetings in refugee settlements in the Gori municipality, where local government representatives will inform refugees about state programmes for them and answer any questions the refugees have. This will be yet another case of officials and non-governmental organisations engaging in a mutually beneficial cooperation," Omadze said.

The Refugees’ News broadcast is part of IWPR’s refugee retraining and employment programme in the region, which was launched in July last year.

Participants receive training in basic journalism, conflict reporting and radio production. Last November, with IWPR’s assistance, the refugees were given office space, computers, technical equipment and internet access at the premises of the local Trialeti radio station.

The first Refugees’ News programme prompted local media, television and print, to provide their own coverage of issues affecting refugees.

“We borrowed the theme from IWPR and Refugees’ News, as we saw there was a really serious problem that needed to be addressed,” Lado Bichashvili, head of the news service at Trialeti TV, said. “The issues raised by the broadcast were relevant covered comprehensively.

“Unexpectedly, the broadcasts, ours and the one prepared by refugees, made quite a stir, with everybody suddenly beginning to see how important it is for the government and population to communicate.”

In response to the first episode of Refugees’ News, Omadze, the spokesperson for the governor of Shida Kartli, said the authorities were keen to do more to improve communication with refugees.

“We would be greatly pleased to participate in all the efforts aimed at making refugees better informed,” Omadze said. “IWPR is one of the organisations that have been actively engaged in our region since the 2008 August war, and it is in our interests to continue to cooperate with it to resolve refugees’ problems.”

The first broadcast of Refugees’ News launched IWPR’s campaign to raise awareness of among refugees of their rights and entitlements and to increase government accountability.

“Meetings between officials and refugees will be conducted regularly to allow them to exchange information,” IWPR manager Maia Avaliani said.

“This way the government will keep refugees up to date on latest programme developments while the refugees, in turn, will tell the officials about the problems they’ve been facing.

“Every meeting will be covered with a special report for Refugees’ News, and after a while a follow-up meeting will be organised for the government officials to present the refugees with an account of what they have done to fulfill their promises.”

Giorgi Aptsiauri, a reporter for Radio Freedom in Shida Kartli and coordinator of the IWPR retraining and employment programme in the region, explained how the idea for Refugee News came about.

“The state has provided quite a number of benefits for those affected by the Georgia-Russia war, but the refugees know little, if anything, about this,” he said.

“That is why we decided that the first radio broadcast produced by refugees was about the state progarmmes carried out with regard to the refugee population and about all the misunderstandings around government benefits.”

Natia Meladze, a refugee who worked on the programme, provided an example of a misunderstanding, “Before the programme was broadcast, refugees, including ourselves, had believed the state fully subsidised their utility costs, and then it turned out that in fact the state benefits only covered a part of their electricity bills.”

Marika Mosidze, from the Tsmindatskhali camp, said the consequences of such ignorance have been severe, “Almost none of us had tried to use electricity sparingly, and we ended up having to foot [big] bills by the time the winter was over.

“This is the sum we cannot afford to pay, as most refugees are unemployed and don’t have any sources of income. It was a lack of information that landed the people in this situation. We, the beneficiaries of state programmes, have often failed to benefit from them or misunderstood things, all because of our ignorance.”

One of the participants of the refugees retraining and employment programme, Natia Chovelidze, said she was surprised at the response to the first Refugees’ News programme.

“I didn’t think the first broadcast would have so much impact - we’d never held an audio recorder in our hands before,” she said. “Not long ago, I wouldn’t have known what a recorder was.”

Natia Gerkenashvili, a Refugee News correspondent, said she was also taken aback by the programme’s influence.

“When IWPR offered to introduce me to journalism, giving me a chance to tell radio listeners about my own community, I was somewhat sceptical, thinking that learning anything new was too late for me,” she said.

“But with our very first broadcast having been so impactful, I see now how important it is that we should be active. The experience has helped me understand that if we don’t take care of ourselves, no one else will.”

In April this year, IWPR’s retraining and employment programme was extended to the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region, an area with the highest number of refugees from Abkhazia. They have undergone similar training to that of the Shida Kartli participants and will also prepare radio programmes on issues affecting them..

“The success of the Shida Kartli programme is of great encouragement to us, making each of us want to excel, so that our show is more popular than theirs,” Nino Marshania, a refugee from Abkhazia participating in the Svaneti project, said.