South Caucasus FLEX-Ability Workshop 2010

More than 55 alumni of the U.S. Government sponsored Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia gathered from March 25 - 29 for the first South Caucasus FLEX-Ability Workshop in Tbilisi, Georgia. The university-age alumni participants met to share ideas for working with youth in the South Caucasus, and collaborate in teams led by FLEX alumni trainers and Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) to develop skills for active citizenship. The workshop agenda included designing projects to inspire youth across the region to be implemented in all three countries in summer 2010. The FLEX-Ability Workshop, administered by American Councils' offices in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, was sponsored by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, as well as those in Azerbaijan and Georgia, along with funds from the 15th Anniversary FLEX Alumni grant.

Through sessions designed and delivered by senior FLEX alumni entitled Leading a Fundraising Campaign (Hasmik Chakhalian '01, Yerevan, Armenia), Youth Participation (Salome Tsereteli-Stephens '00, Tbilisi, Georgia), Social Media and Youth Development (Arzu Geybullayeva '00, Baku, Azerbaijan), Communication for Leadership and Team Building (Ruslan Asadov '04, Baku, Azerbaijan), Revealing the Habits of Highly Effective People (Magda Markosyan '02, Yerevan, Armenia), and Do It Yourself – Promoting Responsibility and Civic Action (Mikheil Benidze '06, Tbilisi, Georgia), FLEX-Ability participants were able to build the professional skills, experience, and contacts needed to promote volunteerism and other civil society concepts among their peers.

The FLEX-Ability Workshop also included a Project Design and Management Training delivered by PCVs Elmer Weaver and Jeremy Hebert of Azerbaijan and Nicole Cashin of Armenia. Proposed collaborative projects for summer 2010 include: blogging training for youth, seminars for youth on human and legal rights, and a South Caucasus cultural video exchange. Each multinational team left the conference with clear goals and objectives, a complete action plan, a budget and fundraising proposal, and a communications plan to ensure the completion of the project.

The FLEX-Ability workshop was inspired in part by the strong desire to cooperate with their neighboring FLEX alumni expressed by groups in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan - countries bound together by geography and history. Kamran Mammad-zada '08 (Sumgait), FLEX Alumni Coordinator in Azerbaijan commented, "The workshop did not just teach alumni new skills and ways of self-realization, but created an atmosphere of friendship where alumni got to know each other through different activities." United by their experiences in America, FLEX-Ability alumni created short presentations about the attractions and culture of these regions to share with future FLEX students. Through the social connections and face-to-face contact established while working in these groups, alumni established the foundations for lasting international friendships - as witnessed by the rapid social networking on Facebook following the workshop!

U.S. Ambassador to Georgia John R. Bass visited the workshop during alumni presentations, and was able to witness first-hand how, through sharing best practices for youth-centered projects, each alumni community has been inspired to implement more of the powerful, productive projects that lead to the change FLEX alumni want to bring to the South Caucasus.