Umbrella, creating the youth climate movement in Georgia

Umbrella is a Georgian youth organisation established in 2016 aiming to educate, motivate and activate youth in Georgia. We support young people’s progress by setting-up youth development spaces to attract them and implement youth-led community development and educational initiatives that enhance young people’s competencies in the field of democracy  (youth participation), environment, and human rights.

Since 2016 we have created 4 youth centres in different rural areas, joined 7 international networks and implemented many youth projects in Georgia and beyond.

We want to increase our impact on the environmental problems in 2022

This year we would like to increase our impact on the environmental problems via youth centres to tackle the climate crisis, raise awareness and promote green habits among youth.

To reach our aim in 2022 we are going to implement various local, national and international activities.

• International: only at the beginning of this year do we have two youth exchanges planned on the topic of green habits and environmentalism, we are also a partner in two other projects in Europe
• National: for now we have approved the EYF pilot project on environmental awareness and tackling the climate crisis on a local level by activating young people and youth workers.
• Local: youth centres are going to implement awareness-raising campaigns, follow-ups from national and international projects, increase the recycling waste amount and involve more young people in the program. Moreover, we have planned a training course for young people in order to empower them and give all competencies what they need to be eco-leaders in their community.

Climate change is the burning issue

We believe that climate change is the burning issue we all are facing, it is obvious for everyone how temperatures and weather patterns are changing on our planet. As a result, we’re seeing strange weather, from floods to droughts, across the globe. It’s also causing glaciers and ice caps to melt, making sea levels rise. To this end, we are working on decreasing human footprint on the environment by raising awareness by separating waste and recycling and other possible means that refers to the civil society youth organisation.

We want to become a part of the EU

Europe to us means development and progress with a million opportunities that consider human dignity, freedom and democratic values. We always bring European cases as an example of how we should be living. It is a unity that gives us the experience and resources to develop our country with the purpose to become a part of the European Union.

YEE means more international opportunities

We joined YEE in 2017 since then we are involved in the network’s activities. Our lovely network is very active and we always feel support from the international level. Being a part of YEE means more international opportunities for our organisation and our target groups. Furthermore, one of our priority topics is the environment and it is significant for us to be part of networks that work on environmental and climate crisis issues and aims to encourage youth to be involved in environmental protection.

YEE is also a great way to meet other organisations working with a similar topic and cooperate for our mutual goals. YEE is an opportunity to empower our local youth, share the best practices from international level to local and vice versa

Make sure not to miss what Umbrella does next – you can find them on the following platforms: 

Huge thanks to Gvantsa Tvaliashvili from Umbrella for providing us with this insight.