Roundtable on 'My Senior Friend' Program

2011-01-11

<p>On February 11, 2011 the Ministry of Justice of Georgia hosted a roundtable meeting on<a href="http://www.una.ge/eng/MySeniorFriendProgram.php">My Senior Friend Program</a>. Representatives of the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia, UN Association of Georgia and other local non-governmental organizations attended the meeting, and discussed the program implementation and further development issues, as well as the ways of mobilizing the public and civil society support around the program.</p> <p>"My Senior Friend” program was developed by the<a href="http://www.justice.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=GEO&amp;sec_id=1&amp;lang_id=ENG">Ministry of Justice of Georgia</a>in cooperation with the<a href="http://www.una.ge/eng/about.php">UN Association of Georgia</a>. The program aims to work with youth who have certain problems (including problems with law) in their lives and are in need of extra positive impact.</p> <p>The idea of the program is to make the best matches of thesenior and junior friends. The program ensures that the matches are made based on same type of personalities and interests/hobbies. After the matches are made, the program agreement will be signed by all parties (including the parents of the younger friend). Senior Friend will be required to spend certain amount of time per week with younger friend, give some advices, show good example, promote social responsibility and do fun activities at the same time.</p> <p>The main goal of this program is to strengthen youth’s trust towards people, change minor’s attitude towards school work, promote social responsibility, make new friends and encourage the kid to be successful in life.</p>