Many college students spend their summer relaxing, taking a few classes or working a summer job, but three members of the WUSTL community spent their time teaching English to 16 teenage members of the Azerbaijani minority in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
Joachim Faust, lecturer in International and Area Studies in Arts & Sciences, senior Aaron Weisman and junior Steve Lopatin were in Georgia for a four-week English language camp supported by the University and the U.S. Embassy in Georgia. They served as teachers, counselors and English conversation partners for a group of 13-15-year-olds.
“It was an absolutely amazing experience,” Weisman said. “The kids were great to work with, as was the rest of the staff. It was also wonderful to see how far the kids’ English proficiency had developed through the month.”
The three WUSTL community members visited Georgia as part of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called the International Initiative for Georgian Development (IIGD), started last year in cooperation with a Georgian student.
Essentially, any organization that deals with problems of public policy that is not part of the government is considered an NGO. Examples include Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and the World Wildlife Fund.
Faust, Weisman and Lopatin were in Tblisi, Georgia, last summer to participate in a seminar called “Emerging Democracy and Civil Society,” taught by James V. Wertsch, Ph.D., the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences and director of International and Area Studies.
During that time, the students, in cooperation with Georgian student Tamta Sharashenidze, started the IIGD.
“NGOs play a particularly important role in the post-Soviet space, since after the breakdown of the Soviet government a sort of a vacuum arose in many places, and the government stopped functioning on many levels, particularly locally,” Faust said.
“There are many NGOs in Georgia, and they are active in many different areas. Most of the students who participated in last summer’s University program in Tbilisi did internships with NGOs, which is how the idea arose to found an NGO themselves.”
Faust got involved in this summer’s program as a result of last summer’s trip, during which he assisted Wertsch in the administration of the program. After the success last summer and the establishment of IIGD, the idea of an English language camp for minorities in Georgia was formed.
“All in all, it was a pretty challenging endeavor,” Faust said. “I had no clear idea about what 16 Azerbaijani teenagers from the Marneuli region in Georgia would be like, and what it would be like to teach them English.”
But as a result of his interaction with the students, Faust “learned a lot about the Georgian mind-set, and also about the Azerbaijani culture, to which I had had no previous exposure.”
“And eventually,” Faust said, “I learned a lot about myself as well, as is always the case when dealing with people from other cultures in such an intensive way.
“In sum, it was a great learning experience.”
Faust added that there is a lot of energy and momentum concerning the future of IIGD. He said plans are under way for a possible language camp with the same group of teenagers this winter.
Next summer’s program may include members of other minority groups in Georgia, including Ossetian, Chechen and Armenian teenagers.