US Ambassador Kelly Degnan visited Tskhaltbila Public School of Akhaltsikhe municipality to attend the police-led legal culture lesson within the program „Community Policing Initiative in Minority Regions of Georgia -CPI“.
Ambassador was welcomed by school students, the principal and administration, the head of the Akhaltsikhe educational resource center, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Akhaltsikhe municipality, PH International Director, and the CPI program manager. The Ambassador and guests attended the Legal culture lesson, which was on the topic of road safety. Akhaltsikhe Patrol police officers, Oganes Saponjian and Soso Chilingarashvili, together with the civics teacher delivered the lesson by playing the game and having interactive communication with students.
After the lesson, students presented class projects they had worked on within the CPI program and mentioned the importance of the project to them. The Ambassador interacted with students and the school community and learned more about their involvement in the program. During her speech, she mentioned how important it is to have in villages such unique project as CPI and she felt the impact and importance of it during this visit.
Ambassador has also visited the school indoor sports hall, which is planned to be rehabilitated within the CPI program infrastructure component. She has mentioned that the next time she visits the school she hopes to see the students playing sports in a newly rehabilitated sports hall.
Tskhaltbila public school is involved in the CPI program since the beginning of the program in November 2020. The village is near the Turkish border and faces migration challenges. It is an Armenian-speaking school and there are integration challenges for its minority community. Within the CPI program school is actively implementing Legal Culture lessons led by police and teacher on topics like children’s rights, domestic violence, early marriage, healthy lifestyle and use of marijuana, cybercrime, etc. Also, students have implemented a class project with the police officer, painting a zebra crossing in front of the school. Currently, they are planning a police day together with the police officer, which aims to increase awareness about legal issues and the police profession among students and the school community.
Moreover, the school was selected among other program participants 15 schools to implement the infrastructure component of the CPI Program. Namely, the sports hall is planned to be rehabilitated with a CPI grant with co-financing from the school and local municipality.
PH International has been implementing the CPI program in Georgia, Samtskhe-Javakheti Region in three municipalities: Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, and Ninotsminda. The goal of the Community Policing Initiative in Minority Regions of Georgia (CPI) is to build relationships and communication between police, youth, and local citizens in 15 minority communities of the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region to improve joint problem-solving with students and the local community so they become more informed and resistant to juvenile crime. The program is financed by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs / INL and supported by the Ministry of Internal affairs of Georgia and the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia.
