MY DAY

• Once upon a time the training in Tbilisi…

              By Arsaluis Mghdesyan, 12.11.2011

Our delegation arrived Tbilisi from Armenia at September 11 to attend the training-seminar called “Euro Caucasus News”. The beginning of our trip was very interesting as we near half an hour were looking for a hotel in a completely other quarter (Vake) of the city, as we were wrong explained its location.

The most interesting and strange thing was that nobody in that quarter did not know where the street Arsena was. To all our questions Vake residents  answered in this way: “We do not know, never heard anything like it”. The impression was that we were looking for a needle in a haystack, not a street in Tbilisi.

Finally we found a taxi driver who was more or less acquainted with the city told us, that the Arsena street in reality is near the central Rustaveli Avenue.

At last, after many wanderings through the city and the giant efforts we found a hotel near the central Rustaveli Avenue. Hotel is very comfortable and the owner is very welcoming woman. We like it.

The first day of training, meeting with the other participants

The first day of training. We woke up early, had a breakfast and accompanied by a staff member of GIPA went to the National Library to attend the official opening ceremony.

After getting acquainted with the trainers from France and participants from Azerbaijan and Georgia, we have come to GIPA to begin the training.

My first impression after a day of work with the guys and trainers is that all of them are very friendly and ready to work. For the day we got to know each other, created our own profiles on a special blog “Eurocaucasusnews” and refine the topic for further work in groups.

In conclusion, I can only add that we have great expectations from the training and trainers and are waiting for the next few days. I think we will learn to use basic tools of the blogosphere, and create a flexible, operative, informative and interesting blog. I hope we will do our best to make the blog popular and to find its special place in the blogosphere.

• Ouch Tuesday, it’s my turn to write a post for you

              By Sopo Mgaloblishvili, 13.11.2011

Lying with laptop on my legs I am thinking what to write and say interesting to you.

I was thinking about trainings and seminars.

Different trainers, different participants, different covered issues and different emotions, but there is one thing which is common for all trainings it’s feeling that you love all trainers and participants and can’t believe how to be without them after 10, 8, 3… days, when the sessions will be finished. List of mails and added friends on Facebook page, box of souvenirs and invitation in different countries are the thing all trainings leave you with.

And it starts life without trainers and participants.

First day you are sitting in front of your computer and looking through photos taken with them, remembering some funny moments and you are having positive smile on your face.

Second day it’s evening and after supper and your favorite TV show you are again in front of computer opening your Facebook page you are starting to visit trainers pages, you are living them comments like – “You are best trainer ever”; “You tought me so many things”…. After trainer it comes participants’ turn – “Hey, how are you, I miss you so much”, “can’t wait to meet you again”; “Tell me how was your and yours boyfriends meeting?”…

Third day you are meeting your friends in cafe you are chatting, chatting, chatting and you are leaving the place. After coming at home you are tired and sleepy, but steel you are turning on your computer. 24 notifications, you are reading comments of trainers and participants on your posts.

Fourth day it starts new training with new trainers, new participants and with same emotions. I am with long list of mails and friends on Facebook.

Life Tastes Great

• A working day story, 16.09.2011

                  By Ovsanna Baghumyan

I cannot tell about the actions of all our participants, as there wasn’t me in the class during the morning. Nikolay, Nino, Hrant and me went to make a video for voxpop with the citizens of Tbilisi asking their opinions about Europe.

For being true, I need to say that Hrant and me did the same voxpop on Tuesday, but it appeared that we had made too much mistakes and that material was rejected. So, we went to do it with help of Nicolay, our trainer. My very sincere thanks and gratitude to him and Nino for help.

One of the problems during our first attempt was  the ignorance of Georgian language and Nino helped us to overcome that obstacle. The second problem was the bad quality of the video and that problem was solved with the teaching of Nikolay, as it is really important, the confidence, that there is a professional beside you, capable to check and direct you.

It seems so easy, you take the camera and make video, in reality you need to feel and  pay attention to many things- the right shadow, background, focusing and so on,  without which making good video  is impossible. Camera is becoming the part of your hand, it’s count necessary every moving, every sound, you need to think about dozens of things at the same time, for being short, you need to consider each trifle when you take the camera in your hand and it is really exciting, looking for new opportunities to do  your job better every moment.

After lunch

It was planned to start the presentations of our topics today.  Nino and Nana presented their material about the problems of disables in Georgia, in particular, in the field of education. I liked their topic, especially the story about Levon, a disable from the birth and earning for money in Internet.

With this presentation the good part of the day ended and  started the sad part. The other partisipants had’nt finished their topics yet or had many skippings, so Prune, the other our trainer was оbliged to abuse us for the blanks in our job. It wasn’t funny, absolutely, as she said everything right, but only few monthes ago I was scolding my students for  the lack of attention and  slowness and now I and my friends were  berated because of the same reason. Life is changeable, yes…

I don’t know did Prune assume how much she looked like an Armenian teacher, in my class i also needed to remind my students about their responsibilities.

Anyway, her words were quite useful and we continued working, even after the end of our working day.

• First week of training is over and it’s time to summarize it, 19.09.2011

             By Nana Tabatadze

The first five days of training were dedicated to practical team work to prepare multimedia stories. As group was divided in several sub-groups and it was the first task for us, we were deeply involved in our own tasks and paid less attention to works of others. Well, at least that’s the way I did it.

Active and informative – this is how I would characterize first week in two words. We had diverse subjects to write about and were limited in time which raised speed of work. Besides, we learned new gadgets for multimedia like vuvox and photofiltre.

The week was active and informative for me, too. It was the first time I wrote about problems of disabled people and to be honest, it was the first time I finished a piece so fast. At first, I was almost sure that we (me and Nino) would fail to present our article on time and we spoke about possible failure almost all the time but we did it. It’s not the top-quality-piece, of course, but still, at least it’s not a failure.

Event of the week

Wednesday morning was the most memorable part of this week. Meeting with Matthew Collin (AFP) and Regis Genté (RFI) showed us closer how professional journalist can work in a foreign country and do a quality job.

In their case it is a bit easier. They are lucky to be in Georgia not because it’s my country but it’s easier for foreign journalists, especially western ones to access sources that are unavailable for local media.

But according to them, it’s not that hard in almost any country if you prepare well to understand the context of the events and get in touch with local journalists to get contacts. The meeting was really encouraging especially for those interested in foreign reporting.

• About topics and emotions, 21.09.2011

                    By Mariam Jachvadze

“Time to go to training” – my “favorite” words in the last eight morning. “What we are going to do today” – it is another “favorite” question for each day. The same was today. Having chosen the topic for our video, lots of things still seems to be done till Friday.

Refugees’ migration process from Tbilisi – it’s our topic. Can’t imagine how glad I was when I heard that today a protest of Abkhasian people recently evicted from their houses in Tbilisi was organised, just in front of the Council of Europe. Officially considered as Internally Displaced Persons, those Abkhasians were protesting because of the difficulties they are facing through since their eviction.

The news made me feel good; it was the second time that I were so focused on the story that I completely forgot about the context. I immediately visualize what images and sounds I would like to have for our story.

Then came back to GIPA, I had a talk with a person who was evicted from the hotel “Abkhazia” and now forced to live in a garage. She agreed to do video interview with her. Then again I had the same feeling, I was completely excited about going and filming her story. And once again, a bit later think about the reality they appeared all of a sudden.

All in all, I have to cover different topics and try to reduce the emotions I have and not to be so sensitive while working on the issue. Remind you not to forget to see our multimedia story on Friday evening.