The internship at the hbs South Caucasus Regional office Tbilisi (30.04.2019 - 31.05.2019) offered me a wide range of insights in the activities of a green political foundation. In the beginning of my time at the hbs Tbilisi office I was able to attend the annual programme planning and gained a good overview of the foundation’s past and upcoming activities. Basing on that I conducted the annual programme evaluation and political analysis of the south Caucasian countries for the donor as most interns do.
Towards the end of my internship I also attended the programmes midterm evaluation., which complemented very well the initial programme planning and gave me a good understanding of the project’s development, also those I wasn’t involved in.
I also recommend an internship in the South Caucasus office since it covers three substantially differing post-soviet countries. The in-depth knowledge of the offices projects and regional politics helped me a lot to draft further articles and info texts later. For this purpose, I also met several partners of the foundation and learned more about the broader context of civil society activity especially in Georgia. For the evaluation of the Green Academy I interviewed experts and participants and thereby felt more connected to the issues of Georgian society on a personal level.
My personal highlight during the internship was the “Bauhaus women” project. The poster exhibition on the women of the German art school and movement aimed at illuminating their contributions that often have been overshadowed by their male counterparts and thereby also empower local female artists. I accepted parts of the preparation and organisation of the project. The exhibition was realized not only in Tbilisi but also in Armenia in cooperation with the Goethe Centre Yerevan and for the hbs Tbilisi office I travelled to Armenia for the preparation as well as the opening of the exhibition.
In September I will start my Master in Urban and Regional Planning in Amsterdam and hope to acquire practical instruments for resolving conflicting interests of various actors on a local level and to enhance the liveability of places. The internship and living in Georgia and Tbilisi, seeing its (unused) potential encouraged me further to specialize in this direction.
