A Kick in the Right Direction
From the Archives
Posted on February 12, 2003
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Q: The name of your project: Paris-Tokyo-Gori – Why this name?
A: In 1970-80 Georgian Judo School and particularly Gori was one of the strongest in the world and its only competitors were the schools of Paris and Tokyo. This is the time when Chochishvili, Khubuluri, Khabareli, Kurtanidze, and others were champions. Unfortunately, this tradition is lost today, so our aim is to restore and maintain these traditions and teach children healthy lifestyle. Mercy Corps provided funding for us to buy Tatami. Two business companies also participated in the project implementation, that also provided financial support for the school. We will continue working with them, since cooperation of the business and social sectors is very important.
Q: How many children are in your club?
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Q: A little while ago there was a joint Georgian-French training in your hall…
A: After finishing an international tournament in Tbilisi, the French team stayed in Georgia for several days and we arranged joint training in our hall. Their coach, Mark Alexander, is my old competitor and friend. We have met four times in the tournaments and he beat me twice on the Olympics and Tbilisi tournament and I have beaten him twice as well – in Paris on European Championship and in Belgrade on World Championship. After this training we talked about future plans and hope that it will be possible to hold similar and even broader activities, in case of proper funding of course. One statistic data: last year budget of the French national team was 12 million FF and Georgian was only 50 thousand lari. We are also negotiating to have joint training with Tskhinvali judo team, that is very important to us.
Reprinted with permission from Mercy Corps Georgia.
To read another Global Envision interview about strengthening communities see Sustainable Empowerment.
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