Women from Mukhuri mobilize to achieve common goals

The village of Mukhuri is located in Tsalenjikha Municipality, in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region. With its rich tourism history and potential for the future, the village attracts many holidaymakers every year, especially in the summer, when even numerous visitors from the capital arrive. Mukhuri itself has a population of about 900 people.

Nonetheless, as in many other villages in Georgia, the locals in Mukhuri also have a number of needs, and women, as usual, are the most aware of these needs. So it was Mukhuri’s women who were the first to identify these problems and then take concrete steps to solve them.

In 2020, when the Farmer Field School initiative was launched in Mukhuri with the support of UN Women and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 20 women from the village gathered together to gain new knowledge. The platform served to establish a network of women farmers in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region and conduct trainings for them to strengthen and develop relevant skills. Participants studied international standards of food safety and food insecurity, learned modern cheese production technologies, entrepreneurship, leadership and business management skills, and gained valuable knowledge about women’s rights and domestic violence.

In parallel, representatives of a local organization, the NEFA Foundation, conducted trainings on civic engagement, activism and volunteerism for the participants of the Farmer Field School in 2022–2023. During these meetings, women had the opportunity to learn how to identify community needs, present them to local governments, advocate for current problems and issues and then find ways to solve them. This happened in Mukhuri too. The leader of the Farmer Field School, 36-year-old Gulnazi Gakharia, together with NEFA representatives and other local women, studied the needs of the village using a needs assessment questionnaire. The needs assessment results showed that there was no place in the village where children could play and where their parents and young people could gather. This issue was particularly worrying for the locals, so Gulnazi, along with other women, appealed to the municipality to open a square. Soon, a space was found along the central road, in front of the village stadium, and works began.

“The whole of Mukhuri got involved in this event,” Gulnazi says. “The residents did a lot of work with their own hands. Part of the square has already been completed, but not all of the work has been finished yet. It will be a very good space for gatherings, especially in the summer, when many holidaymakers arrive. Fitness stations have also been installed in the centre of the village.”

Even after the Farmer Field School initiative concluded, the residents of Mukhuri continued to work independently for the welfare of the village and united to solve another problem, this time the rehabilitation of a road. A section about 650 metres long connected a neighbourhood of about 30 residents to the central road, but the pavement was so damaged that not all cars could drive on it, especially during bad weather. Most importantly, it was even difficult for an ambulance to reach the neighbourhood. The entire village supported the common goal and the women’s initiative: They became active, advocated for the solution of the problem to the end, and today, they are already using the new road.

“This project brought us women together, while the NEFA Foundation’s trainings brought us even closer and also raised our awareness,” Gulnazi notes. “We kept thinking about how we could help each other, how we could support others. Through our activities, we showed our fellow community members tangible results and development: These were empowered women, armed with knowledge, skills, grants and achievements that others appreciated. Many people felt a desire to help each other and mobilize. This was truly a step forward in terms of civil society development.”

Although the Farmer Field School has ended, its participants continue to gather in Mukhuri, and the doors to these meetings are always open to all women.

The Farmer Field School initiative was part of the joint UN Women-FAO project “Fostering Economic Empowerment of Women Farmers by Supporting Homemade Dairy Production through the Farmer Field School (FFS) Approach”. It was implemented in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region from 2020 to 2024 with the financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).