Earning a Free Ride
One community in Georgia seeks a better future for its children
At the end of the day before summer break, students rush out the front doors of their school and eagerly board the waiting minibus. The younger students throw their backpacks in before climbing up to seats by the window, while the teenagers neatly fold their bags in their laps.
This is a new experience for some of the 560 Georgian, Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian and Roma students who attend Public School #3, which is located on a quiet, tree-lined street several blocks from the city center in Rustavi, Georgia.
Once an important industrial center near the borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Rustavi now has an empty, decaying feel. Its skyline is dominated by colorful, crumbling Soviet apartment blocks and the grey steel of abandoned factories — many of which were shut down when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
This free service, financed by the Ministry of Education, makes up to six trips a day transporting students to and from villages surrounding the city — none in easy walking distance.
This wasn’t always the case.
In 2016, the $16 monthly fee per child for a private school bus — the only transport available — was pushing families in the Roma community of Gachiani toward destitution. Some parents had to make the choice each month between feeding their families or sending their children to school.
The Roma — a common name for a distinct ethnic group often living in isolation from larger society throughout much of Europe — are among the most marginalized and socially excluded ethnic communities in Georgia. They live with poverty, unemployment, limited access to health care and education, isolation, lack of Georgian language skills, and the absence of proper documentation, including identity cards and passports.
The situation in Gachiani is extreme.
There is no drinking water, electricity or paved roads, and the 12 families in the village rely on welfare from the government to survive. Many of the men in Gachiani are illiterate, which makes it hard for them to find steady employment.
For some families, the bus fee was as much as half their monthly income and many went into debt over the transportation costs.
Then several grandmothers from the community took action.
Freedom Riders
When the school administration was unresponsive to the community’s requests to provide free school transport, the grandmothers contacted Elene Proshikian, a representative of the Roma minority at the Rustavi office of the USAID-supported Human Rights Center — a Georgian NGO focused on protecting human rights across the country.
They successfully lobbied the Ministry of Education to provide a free school bus, not just for their kin, but for any Roma, Azerbaijani or Georgian students who live more than three kilometers from school.
Although the Georgian constitution provides for equality before the law, discrimination and instances of hate speech directed at minority groups are a problem. School attendance is low for children in these communities, and a lack of Georgian-language skills is a significant barrier to integration and inclusion.
Now, the students from villages around Rustavi are no longer missing school. “The school bus is everything for us, it’s our lifeline,” said one relieved mother from Gachiani.
From Small Efforts Come Big Benefits
The success of the school bus initiative gave the Human Rights Center an inroad to help the community work with the local government to include basic infrastructure improvements in the 2018 municipal budget — including street lights, drinkable water and better roads.
A new kindergarten that will serve 180 children is also being constructed. While it will be located in the community, parents are hopeful transportation will be provided in the future as their children are still too young to walk on their own.
Through providing legal aid, USAID is strengthening resilience in Gachiani and other vulnerable Georgian communities, while encouraging more responsive local governance. This includes improving the justice system to ensure due process, judicial independence and the protection of human rights.
Villagers of Gachiani and other remote villages are taking pride in their ability to become self-reliant and make their communities a more pleasant place to live and raise children.
Inspired by their success, they are now setting their sights on soliciting a second bus for the expected influx of new students next year.
Between 2015 and 2017, USAID’s Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia project has provided legal consultation and representation to more than 43,000 individuals in Georgia, and successfully finalized 18 strategically important cases locally.
About the Author
Sarah Richardson is a Development Assistant with USAID’s mission in Georgia.
