Below is the proposal that was written by St. John's students and submitted to the Davis Foundation in 2009.

The following students from St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD will organize, monitor and engage others to make the proposed project successful: Nino Aduashvili, Mariam Aduashvili, (natives of Georgia) Noel Brockett, Acacia Pappas, Vincent Tavani and Charmaine Benham. The project will take place in Southern Caucasus and center in the country of Georgia.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union three factions appeared in Southern Caucasus in a region historically known as Georgia. In 1991 a conflict over sovereignty between the regions of Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia escalated to a bloody and mutually destructive military conflict pausing in 1992. The conflict was not resolved and in August 2008 the world saw a return to violence that spread to all three regions, killed hundreds, displaced thousands and frightened the world.

The current conversation in the region as well as things said around the world about the conflict make no positive difference in the lives of the inhabitants of the regions. The conversations encourage prejudiced opinions, rather than community, and continue to divide people into different categories. All of this hinders people from honestly coming together for peace in the region and increases the risk of another outbreak of violence.

Our project is to promote peace in the country of Georgia and the two conflict regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by starting a new conversation for peace between young adults in the regions and to empower them to continue that conversation for peace in their local communities. By peace we do not mean the surrender of one’s beliefs, principles or values; instead, we mean the state in which independent beings work together freely. A conversation for peace is a dialogue in which all parties are committed to resolution.

We will accomplish the project in two phases. In the first phase, we will bring together a group of about 20 ethnic Georgian, Abkhazian and South Ossetian young adults in Tbilisi, Georgia for an educational course. Our Georgian partners (see below) will administer an application process that will be overseen by the St. John’s students organizing the project. The course, lasting 10 days, will in principle be based on a classical liberal arts method and led by the participating St. John’s College students.  

The course is meant to empower the participants to create their own conversation for peace, rather than one that is inherited or given to them. We will achieve this goal in three stages: the first is to establish community; the second is to agree upon a common definition of peace; the third is to reflect on the first two stages, and distinguish them as exemplarily models for a conversation for peace and how to implement it in their communities and the world.

To establish community we will read and discuss parts of original texts from the canon of Western thought, such as Thucydides and Plato’s Meno., The texts confront the participants with the questions, “What do we know?” and “How do we know it?” By reading and talking about the material, the students will realize that, as human beings, they share fundamental questions, and have to work together to reach the answers.

To establish a common definition of peace the class will listen to, sing, analyze and discuss folk polyphonic music. We will discuss how four independent voices can sing four completely different melodies and yet combine to create something more beautiful than any one voice could produce. This shows how different groups of people can retain their individuality and still function as a peaceful and beautiful community. We will then formulate and agree on an inspiring definition of peace.

In the third stage, students will reflect on the conversations they have had and will discuss how they constitute a model for peace in the region. In the first two stages, they generated a conversation for peace. Upon reflection, they will realize that they generated this conversation and now they have the ability to expand it to their communities. They will then conceive and design community projects to engage and inspire more people in a new conversation for peace. They will be required to submit plans for achieving specified short-term results (i.e. June to August 2009) that will define the completion of their projects.

In the second phase of the project, the participants will return to their homes to design projects that engage their communities in the new conversation for peace in the region. During this process we will offer any desired counsel, but the projects will be solely theirs. We will give prizes for the best projects that have satisfied their defined results and have been reported by August 2009.

Some examples of possible participant projects that would contribute to the community and the conversation for peace in the region include starting music and dance ensembles that bring people of different ethnicities together; creating new publications that utilize submissions from different regions; organizing groups to reconstruct damaged areas; and holding discussion-based classes similar to this project.

By creating and completing their own projects, the students will be inspired by their accomplishments and empowered to continue a meaningful conversation to create a peaceful region. Their projects will inspire and engage others to bring a genuine and workable mindset for the possibility of peace in each of their communities. We believe that the new conversation for peace generated by the participants and their communities can bring about a united peace effort in the region, where all parties work together freely.

The Georgian Ministry of Refugees and Accommodations has agreed to provide the facilities for our class and any needed accommodations for participants. They will help us publicize and find participants from all the regions and aid us in coordinating travel for them (see attached letter).

We will use the aid of St. John’s students and tutors to create the most effective and empowering curriculum for our 10-day course. Jim Beall, tutor at St. John’s College, has agreed to advise us on designing the curriculum (see attached letter). OLEG, Inc., (Organization for Liberal Education in Georgia) has agreed to aid us in enrolling more tutors from St. John’s College and other scholars in the United States and Georgia to advise in creating the curriculum.

The project is integral as designed and will foster opportunities for partnerships with other organizations that will allow it to grow and continue in future years. We have already gained the support of OLEG, Inc., (Organization for Liberal Education in Georgia) which has agreed to evaluate the project after its completion (see attached letter).