Since April 2018, the Public Defender of Georgia has been participating in the EuropeanNetwork of Young Advisors (ENYA), a youth project of the EuropeanNetwork of Ombudspersons forChildren, which promotes active participation of young people in the network’s annual activity.

Under the coordination of the Public Defender's Center for Children's Rights, 15 minors were involved in the project from Georgia. They have met with professionals working on child's mental health issues for 2 months and received information about the challenges in this field. The subject of particular interest was access to resources and psychological/psychiatric services; videos and recommendations, the main part of which concerns the isolation and stigmatization of children with mental health problems and violent attitude towards them, were developed.

On June 28-29, 2018, project participants Tornike Nizharadze and Vakhtang Arutinyan, together with Public Defender’s representative Tamta Babunashvili, participated in the youth forum held in Barcelona, where they discussed the activities carried out within the framework of the project in Georgia and presented a video.

Representatives of 10 countries participating in the forum expressed their opinions about the existent problems and their solutions when working out recommendations of the EuropeanNetwork of Ombudspersons forChildren and talked about the positive and negative practices of their countries in the field of child's mental health.

The Center for Child’s Rights of the Public Defender's Office will actively continue to carry out various activities together with minors in order to raise awareness of their rights and ensure their engagement.