Driving Change in the Regions: Mindoor's Efforts to Empower Youth Through Education

In this interview, we have the opportunity to hear from Lana Chkhartishvili, the Founder and CEO of MinDoor, and Nino Beruashvili, the Founder and Managing Partner of MinDoor. As a recently established organization, MinDoor has already embarked on impactful projects in the regions, focusing on making quality education accessible and promoting employment through public-private partnerships. We delve into their mission, current initiatives, and future plans, shedding light on the importance of their activities in empowering the youth and fostering socio-economic development.

It's been just a few months since MinDoor was established and you are already actively conducting projects in the regions. First of all, could you tell us why the regions are a priority for MinDoor and what is the importance of your various activities there?

Implementation of projects in the regions fully corresponds to our main mission: our main purpose is to make quality education more accessible to different groups and to promote their employment through public-private partnership. When our educational program is implemented in the region, it helps young people to deepen their knowledge, improve their competence and skills, which are important for both their personal and society's development in general. This helps them in productive employment in the future, which contributes to the economic activity of the regions; which our regions especially need.

What projects have you implemented in the regions, in which regions, and with what results?

One of our directions is to develop the so-called "soft skills" for young people, which are currently in demand in the labor market and will become even more in demand in the future. Our current project is also related to developing these skills, and it is implemented for students of Telavi, Gori, and Kutaisi universities. 150 students will undergo training within the project.

The project is still ongoing, and it is too early to talk about the results. However, we cannot but emphasize the positive, anonymous feedback of the participants at the end of the training. We also plan to evaluate the results of the project after 6 months, and we really hope that we will have the opportunity to talk about it again in the next issues of Diplomat.

Was there anything that surprised you or made you think differently about the need for your projects?

We were especially pleasantly surprised by the level of motivation and enthusiasm with which young people are involved in the project. Our expectation was that the level of motivation on their part would be high; however, what we found on the ground exceeded our expectations. The involvement of students, their desire to achieve an important goal and make a valuable contribution to the development of society is very high, which makes us especially happy and makes us want to implement many more interesting projects for the regions.

There is a lot of talk about how talented people live in the regions. Did you meet someone there who impressed you?

Each participant was particularly memorable to us for their strongly expressed individuality; however, we can single out one participant in particular who had certain neurodevelopmental difficulties. It was amazing to us how much she had read and studied on her own about her condition and how bravely and persistently she was able to cope with the challenges of everyday life. This person's perseverance and curiosity can definitely be a role model for many of us.

What are your future plans for the regions?

From September, we will continue to develop the top-in-demand skills program for students in the same regions. Within the framework of the same training, we are actively working on defining the future needs of students. Our further programs will be based on this exact need, and their goal will be to increase the productivity of young people and ensure their active involvement in public life.