Bolnisi district court accepted civil activists Lasha Chkhvimiani and Ruslan Omarov lawsuits by which they demand the opening of kindergartens in the villages of Dmanisi municipality - Irganchai and Amamlo communities. Sessions in both cases will be held on April 5.
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Lasha Chkhvimiani, 29, lives in Dmanisi. He was Zinaida Kverenchkhiladze Dmanisi Professional State Drama Theatre artistic director for four years. After the appointment of Thea Tsulukiani as the Minister of Culture, he also became a victim of "Tsulukiani's repressive policy" and was dismissed from the position of artistic director. After leaving the theater, Lasha founded the non-governmental organization "Meeting Place" in Dmanisi and actively tries to offer various opportunities for informal education to the residents of Dmanisi - he builds a cultural-educational space with public funding. Lasha has two minor children. The older girl, who will be 4 years old soon, goes to Dmanisi kindergarten. Unlike his daughter, none of the children in the villages of Dmanisi, where ethnic Azerbaijanis live, receive preschool education. Out of 57 villages of the municipality, kindergarten is only in seven. There is no preschool education institution in any village inhabited by minorities. To change this unequal situation, Lasha is actively involved in the advocacy process, aimed to help children living in highland and minority settlements realize their constitutional right to education. The advocacy campaign is carried out by the NGO Center for Civic Activities with the support of the USAID Civil Society Engagement Program.
Ruslan Omarov, 21, a student of English philology at Tbilisi State University, is a rare exception among those young people who live in Dmanisi municipality and, despite pressure from many sides, do not shy away from openly fighting for equal rights. Ruslani lives in Saparlo village of Amamlo community. He has three and four-year-old cousin's children - there are about 20 children in the same village under the age of six without kindergarten. In the 2021-2030 state strategy for civil equality and integration and action plan, it's written that the most effective way to learn the state language is to start it from the preschool education level. The note was written in the previous strategy document as well. About 5 thousand children are left out of preschool education only in the Kvemo Kartli region.
In November 2022, with the support of the Center for Civic Activities, Lasha Chkhvimiani, and Ruslan Omarov petitioned Dmanisi Municipality Council and requested the opening of kindergartens in Irganchai and Amamlo.
The petition, as a form of citizen participation in self-government, has existed in the Local Self-Government Code since 2015, but this was the first time petition was submitted to Dmanisi City Council. Each petition is signed by more than 250 voters.
During the process of collecting signatures for petitions in Dmanisi village, employees of the Center for Civic Activities were obstructed to work more than once - drunk persons and representatives of the mayor in the villages chased the activists with cars and tried to hit them.
Koba Muradashvili, Dmanisi Municipality mayor, told the representatives of the Center for Civic Activities in a phone conversation that "strangers" should not visit the villages of Dmanisi without his permission.
Since 2012, Muradashvili has worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then in the State Security Service.
City council has the right defined by law to send the petition to the mayor for consideration, to create a special working group, or to send it to a commission for study. Dmanisi City Council forwarded both petitions to the mayor, who was supposed to review the petition within a month and inform the petitioners regarding the results together with City Council. The Mayor violated the requirements established by law.
On December 26, Dmanisi City Council took the notice of the decision of the Spatial-Territorial Planning and city council Infrastructure Commission and considered it inappropriate to review the petitions. However, the right to preschool education is guaranteed by the constitution. The legislation directly obliges self-governments to provide preschool education for all children of the appropriate age.
The City Council explained its decision by the fact that, with the prime minister's initiation, the construction-rehabilitation program of kindergartens will start throughout the country in 2023, and within the framework of this program, the construction of new kindergartens is also planned in Dmanisi municipality.
On November 28 of 2022 at the government meeting, Irakli Gharibashvili truly spoke about the start of the kindergarten construction-rehabilitation program.
"Kindergartens are in a very poor condition across the country. Mr. Irakli Karseladze processed this issue on my instructions. It was revealed that 885 kindergartens need construction and rehabilitation. Therefore, we decided to start a program for the construction and rehabilitation of kindergartens. This will be implemented in three phases and we will start the first phase on January 1, 2023. 100 million GEL is allocated to finance this program. In total, it will cost us 1.3 billion GEL, it will be fully rehabilitated and new gardens will be built all over the country", - in order to verify this statement, the online publication Mtis Ambebi twice applied to the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and the so-called The public information available in the Ministry regarding the new program was requested.
Only after submitting an administrative complaint, did the Ministry reply with a letter that no documentation regarding the program exists.
Plaintiffs Lasha Chkhvimiani and Ruslan Omarov request Dmanisi City Council be instructed to consider, study, and resolve the submitted petitions. Judge Nino Giorgadze will consider both cases.
In the last 7 years, since the Self-Government Code envisages a petition mechanism, no one has ever appealed the refusal for granting the petition in Georgia, moreover, no one has requested realization of the right to access preschool education.
As part of the advocacy campaign for access to preschool education, the " Center for Civic Activities " studied the practice of 32 municipalities. The worst situation is in Kvemo Kartli - Dmanisi, Bolnisi, and Tsalka districts.
Out of 48 villages of Bolnisi, only five have kindergartens. 63% of the population are ethnic Azerbaijanis. There is no kindergarten in any village inhabited by minorities.
Out of 43 villages of Tsalka municipality, there is a kindergarten in only six. About 53% of the population are ethnic minorities. 39% of them are Armenians, almost 7% are Azerbaijanis and the same number are Greeks. There is no kindergarten in any village inhabited by Armenians and Greeks. Pre-school education is available only in Kizil-Kilisa, the only village inhabited by Armenians.
With the help of the Center for Civic Activities, 16 petitions have been submitted to the city councils of Tsalka, Bolnisi, Dmanisi, Akhalkalaki, Borjomi, Aspindza, Tkibuli, Sachkhere, Tsageri, and Sagarejo municipalities.
