{ddrfs} The first OLEG members have crossed into the Caucasus!  In the week surrounding the beginning of June, six students arrived in Tbilisi in preparation for the summer project(pictuered left to right): Acacia Pappas, Vincent Tavani, Mariam Aduashvili,  Nini Aduashvili, Noel Brocket, and Charmaine Benham.  With the help of contacts established last summer, they are getting ready for the three-week summer study program, which will train faculty and give St. John's students a chance to study abroad.  In addition, they are acting as OLEG's representatives in another project started by St. John's students called "A New Conversation for Peace in the Caucasus."  (Read the accepted project proposal )

Through our representatives, OLEG is offering advice and expertise in the realm of liberal education and seminar courses in Georgia. As an organization we are considering adoption of the project under OLEG's own programs in the future, and are therefore assessing the project's successfulness and reproducibility.

With the experience gained through last year's expedition, some OLEG members were able to initiate this project in response to the recent regional conflicts.  Winning a $10,000 grant from Davis Peace Projects, they have designed a two-week program for youth affected by the conflicts.  Based on the discussion-style classroom at St. John's, the course's goal is to provide a space for the participants in which to develop their own perspective and voice, difficult in an environment of inherited opinions which only prolong the conflict.  The hope is to inspire them to realize their own ability and to empower them with their own language for a new conversation for peace.  Each day will consist of a) an hour discussion of a very short but provocative text (selections from authors such as Plato, Ptolemy, Hegel, and Nietzsche); and b) an hour master-class, having to do with writing, music, theater, or meta-discussion.  The master-class, through encouraging cooperation and interaction, will allow for more developed discussion, increased participation, a more familiar environment, and a closer community in this small model of a society.  After the course, students will return to their own community with a self-assigned project or goal to continue the conversation they themselves have started.

We are very excited about this project and the prospects it offers Georgia and perhaps other regions in the Caucasus in the future.  And while we're keeping in touch with the OLEG contingent already Tbilisi, members still state-side are gearing up for the summer program.

Stay updated, as we plan to post information often during OLEG's 2009 program in Georgia!