LYNC-Georgia organized a series of local seminars on liberalism.

"Liberal Youth Network of the South Caucasus" (Georgia) in the framework of the Young Republicans, which is partner of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Germany and in general the young liberals of the international liberal youth organizations in Georgia made the set of seminars on the topic of liberalism.

The lectures were attended by new members of the Young Republicans, who are interested to acquire more knowledge in terms of ideology, all representatives of LYNC from Georgia and the employee of Young Lawyers' Association, who is a member of the LYNC too.

In the framework of week there were held three seminars about liberalism. The first seminar was held on 29.02.2012 by Ivliane Khaindrava with topic of “Liberalism- liberal ideology and its competitors”. Second seminar was made by Pridon Sakvarelidze about the "Human Rights in Liberal State” on 01.03.2012 and the last seminar in this set was held on 02.03.2012 by Gigla Agulashvili - "Rule of law & Liberalism". 

The participants were introduced the information about LYNC and its importance in this region, had debates and discusses the most important issues which related to the subject.

LYNC-ARMENIA HELD A LOCAL SEMINAR AND A DEBATES DAY

     On 26th of January the young liberals of Yerevan had a chance to listen to Mrs Yasemin Pamuk’s lecture on the following subject - “What is Liberalism and How it Works”. On that day the Armenian team of Liberal Youth Network of the South Caucasus joined Friedrich Naumann Foundation in organizing the seminar at Aviatrans Hotel in Yerevan and eventually we had a chance to present LYNC to the newcomers of the youth liberal world. 

The first presentation of Mrs Pamuk gave to the participants of the seminar a chance to get more acquainted to the goals and activities of Friedrich Naumann Foundation. It was presented what phenomenas FNF stands for and what it rejects. These liberal aspects of life, including freedom of choice, human rights, etc. appeared to be quite interesting, as they caused an active discussion in the conference hall among the participants. The young activists had a chance to express their point of view on the limits of individual freedom on an example of a person, who wished to appear in the society with a strange look. And this was just one of many examples that gave an opportunity to express youngsters’ individual opinions which varied quite a lot. There was an attempt to find the relation between education and progress, as well as the differences between modernization and westernization. Here also, with the facilitation of Mrs Yasemin Pamuk, the participants talked about the importance of education in the formation of the true path of the progress. 

Afterwards, the vice-president of Political Legal Economic Research and Forecast Center (PLERF) Vahagn Khachatryan switched the attention of the auditorium to the economic aspects of liberalism. He talked about the differences of political regimes that Armenia had gone through and about the situation  in the country nowadays. 

The final point of the program of the seminar was the presentation of LYNC to the participants. The Armenian members of LYNC were pleasantly surprised by the interest of the Armenian young activists in this kind of youth initiative in our country. Despite the fact, that the seminar was planned to last three hours, in fact it took much more time to interpret, discuss, summarize and make conclusions on the chosen liberal subjects. 

The Azerbaijani team of LYNC held his first event.

The Azerbaijani team of LYNC held his first event.

On the 5th February, 2012, in Baku"The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom" and “Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus” held the seminar-presentation on the topic “The essential principles of Liberalism” and “Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus”.

There were about 50 young participants  representing different youth organizations, institutions of civil societies, members of the youth organizations supporting the different political parties and also journalists treated to join the event. But only 25 participants were chosen to participate in the event (Representatives from “Democrat Youth Organization" , “Musavat Youth Organization”, ADP Youth Committee, “Dalgha” Youth Movement, “Youth Club” Public Union, Azerbaijan Student Youth Organizations' Union (ASYOU) and others).

During the event there were discussions on the topic concerning the essential principles of theory of liberalism by the head of “Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus” financial department Yegana Hajiyeva, head of organization department Asif Orujlu and the member of the constitutional department Parvin Guliyev.

At the second part of the event there was a presentation about the project of “Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus”. During the event youth asked many questions and actively discussed points relating the importance of LYNC, about its influence on the peace building processes in the region of South Caucasus and the new movement of liberal youth. As a final result of the event, there  will be a selection of certain active youth among the participants for the next joint seminar of LYNC that will be held in Georgia.

Starting the LYNC

From 9th to 16th of October once again in the region of South Caucasus there was an attempt to trigger the youth interest in regional cooperation and tolerance. 6 trainers invited from Germany, whose purpose was to lead a group of young active representatives from South Caucasian countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) to creation of regional youth organization, which was initially called LYNC (Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus). The seminar had two stages: on the first stage, from 9th to 11th October, two pre-seminars were organized paralelly in Armenia (Tsahkadzor) with trainers Maximilian Klefenz , Johannes Wolf and Sabine Weizel and in Azerbaijan (Novxani) with Frederik Ferié, Philip Hansen and Anna Catharina Müller, during which the groups of participants tried to draw out a draft overview of the future organization, its purpose, structure, action-plan, etc. On the second stage more than 25 participants were chosen from two groups, who met in Georgia (Bakuriani) on the 12th of October and continued working on the common idea till 16th of October. During the second stage the trainers helped the youth from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia understand the possibilities that so called umbrella organization LYNC can give, the problems it can face as a dislocated working team. In this aspect it was quite useful to look through the experiences of other countries and regions, which also attempted to create regional umbrella organizations, but eventually failed. In this context for the participants it was quite useful to have a day of presentations of different tools of working in a team by Frederik Ferié.

On the first stage of the seminar, by the end of each day, two groups in Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged video greetings and shared the summarized results of the day with each other. This helped to start immediate cooperation, when they met in Bakuriani. And already in Bakuriani the future LYNC working group members had their first voting on the steering committee formulation issues and particular points of the LYNC future action plan. By the end of the seminar the LYNC already had the following departments: fundraising, constitution, manifesto, organization, public relations and international relations. Each department now has its responsible member in the steering committee, which has already designed a common action plan with timeline for the upcoming year.

In December LYNC team had a four-days informal meeting in Tbilisi to review what had already been done, how effectively they worked, exchanged internal feedbacks and tried to clarify and implement new methods and technologies for effective communication and cooperation.

The South-Caucasian youth now works towards organizational affairs of local seminars, after which the LYNC team plans to have a joint seminar in Georgia again at the beginning of 2012.

Welcome to our new regional youth initiative community !

Dear Friends,

If you are reading this, then we have discovered you on our adventurous way towards formation of a new youth liberal organization and highly value your support, readership, friendship and other links with us. We have been looking through the experience of exceptional and quite successful liberal organizations and individuals, including you, while trying to create our own rules and principles. This is why we decided to share our first steps, ambitions, interests and plans with those who not only talk, but also greatly act, and are the leaders in the sphere of fighting for freedom and human rights.  Herewith...

We are excited to present you the blog of Liberal Youth Network of South Caucasus, i.e. LYNC !

This blog aims to present the newly formed youth organization, which has adopted liberal ideology and concepts. Despite the regional political and economic unstable situation we, liberal youth from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia decided together to establish LYNC to spread the idea of liberalism in South Caucasus not just as a theory but also as a practical social and political tool.

As socially active, quite well educated, professional youth with skills and deep knowledge of liberalism and liberal values, we  mobilized our power for activating regional cooperation based on individual freedom, tolerance and equal rights.  

We strongly hope that our initiative will greatly contribute to the peace making process, dialogue of civilizations, will have a great impact on free market development, political and social freedom establishment.

On this stage we aim to prepare a solid base for our concrete ideas to become a reality by October of this year as a juridically functioning organization. By that time we plan to have proceed a series of local seminars which will lead to a regional seminar in Georgia in February 2012. After the joint seminar we are planning to finalize our basic documents as constitution and manifest, which will be discussed and voted during the LYNC Congress in September 2012 in Georgia.

We will be very glad to share our ideas and experience with increasing amount of  newly engaged, interested readers and potential members of LYNC.

Let’s get it started!

With Respect,

LYNC Team.