The Future Georgia Wants

"Hello UN, I am Kato Agladze, 2 years old. My grandmother and I wrote this letter. Because I can’t write she did it on my behalf. I would like to live in peace and a beautiful Georgia. We both ask you to help our small country. We don’t want wars anymore.”

Luiza Jincharadze 62, came to the celebration ceremony of United Nations (UN) in the centre of Tbilisi with her young granddaughter. Together, they filled in a wish paper and dropped the letter into the glass box.

Georgia joined global celebrations as the 193 United Nations (UN) member states marked the 69th anniversary of the international organisation on October 24.

The ceremony weekend ended with the launch of the ‘Georgia and the UN: The Future We Want’ campaign, which was established by the UN Georgia and aimed to showcase how people imagined their future in Georgia and in the world.

Messages to the UN: The Future We Want

An important part of the UN event was the ‘sharing of wishes’. Guests were invited to write down their wish and drop it in the message box. The messages will be sent to the UN and will reveal what the Georgian nation wishes to change, what they expected from the future and how they would get there.

Pensioner Giuli Murusidze, 70, went to the UN Day to send a message to the UN and the whole world. She wished for less domestic violence against Georgian women.

"I would like my country to gain freedom. I want to stop domestic violence. I wished that men would behave like gentlemen as they did in my younger years. I would for them to admire their ladies,” she wrote.

Eight-year-old Giorgi Edubov is a primary school pupil at a local school. He has a little sister and he wished for her.

"I want my sister to grow up beautiful and clever. Also, I wished that my country would gain its glory and shine.”

Marina Kharitinashvili is a teacher. In the future she wanted Georgia to be a country without violations of human rights.

"Dear UN, please give attention to domestic violence against women. I would like to live in the future where problems of domestic violence, homeless people and animals will be solved.”

Ecologist Eka Eisbarashvili wrote: "Dear United Nations, I am not asking for peace and high values. I just want my future in a clean environment and I would like happy and warmhearted people to live with me.”

Peace for the country, a green environment, a world without violation, and friendliness between people was how Georgians see their future.

Georgia and the United Nations

Twenty years ago on October 24, UN house officially opened in Tbilisi near the Round Garden in Vake district.

Tbilisi celebrated the occasion in a variety of ways. Numerous of activities were held near Round Garden, including an exhibition of children’s paintings, a concert and a space for a wishes box.

Children wrote their wishes on pieces of white paper. They described what the UN meant to them and what they hoped for the future. Looking through the children’s work, it seemed the Georgian youngsters associated the UN with colourful images, with peace, the sun and with happy portraits of people.

At the UN Day opening ceremony, UN Georgia’s head Niels Scott made a speech, where he said he wanted to listen to the hopes and dreams of Georgia’s youth and how they imagined the UN could help them realize their dreams.

UN Day has been celebrated around the globe since 1948. Since this time, the UN has worked to foster peace, development and human rights around the globe.

Georgia is a state which has signed seven important UN United international conventions and treaties on the protection of human rights, security, environmental protection and other areas. Georgia is among 188 other countries which supported and obligated themselves to implement the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals approved by the UN General Assembly.