One saturday in March, more than 7,000 cities and towns in 153 countries and territories worldwide switched off their non-essential lights for an hour in celebration of the largest environmental voluntary action for a greener and safer world – Earth Hour. For the fifth time this year, Georgia has joined Earth Hour with a massive campaign that brings together civil society, businesses, international organizations, Government agencies, students and individual citizens. 

Since 2009, UNO Tbilisi has partnered with UNDP, the Ministry of Environment Protection and the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN), the official representative of Earth Hour in Georgia to organize Earth Hour events. This year, UNO  joined efforts with UNDP, the national Ministry of Environment Protection, CNN, leading Georgian businesses and media outlets Georgia Today, Rustavi-2, Radio City and Radio Jazz FM to observe Earth Hour 2013 in Tbilisi. 

The festivities began with the traditional public gathering in front of the UN House at the Round Garden. There, live music accompanied candle lighting to form the 60+ logo. 

Present at the public event were a large number of people from all walks of life, including youth, Government, NGO, and media representatives. After the switch-off at 8:30 pm, the celebration shifted to the Sheraton Metechi Palace Hotel for a “Green Party” and special Earth Hour performance. To further raise awareness, UNO promoted the event through its partner educational institutions.

At the Tbilisi National Youth Palace another large-scale event with special performances and poetry reading sessions was under way. 

Prior to the day, an Earth Hour photo contest was announced wherein participants took photos of iconic landmarks before and after switch-off. The winners of the contest will be announced on Earth Day, 22 April. 

From 21 to 23 March, Tbilisi hosted an information campaign, “Stop Racism – Take an Action”, dedicated to the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 

Targeting youth, the campaign aimed to raise awareness on the roots of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, to foster dialogue and respect for human rights and to use the power of sport to end the blight of racism. 

The Day’s activities were organized by the Union “Universal Peace Federation” in partnership with the African Union (AU) and with the assistance of the UN Office Tbilisi. The information campaign kicked off with lectures to school children about human rights and racism. 

On 21 March, students met with an AU member from the Ivory Coast Leonard Seka, at Public School #136 where he spoke about roots of racism and shared facts on African culture and history. Pupils discussed the feelings of the discriminated people. The song "We Are the World 25 for Haiti" featuring more than 80 artists and performers of different races and generation was shown to illustrate that their hearts and souls were open to join together for the people of Haiti. 

The campaign closed on 23 March with a football tournament that brought together young people of different ages, backgrounds and ethnicities. Four soccer teams: African teams from Ivory Coast and Cameroon and Georgian teams from Free University and NGO “Georgia for help of refugees” too part in the tournament held at playground of Free University. The NGO team displayed a strong competitive drive and won the first prize.  

The UN Office (UNO) Tbilisi, in cooperation with the UN Agencies in Georgia, launched a series of radio programmes on human rights.

Joint UN radio project Rights & Liberties covers a range of issues related to human rights and gives the floor to discussions and questions from the audience. It is designed to provide to the public civic education as well as practical information. 

UNO, UNDP, UNICEF, OHCHR, UNHCR and UN Women all contribute to the weekly programme with topics and content. The show is prepared and aired by Radio-1 (Georgian Public Broadcaster) and runs from February through December 2013.       

For the past two years, the UN has used this platform to discuss a range of topics, such as justice, gender, biodiversity, adequate housing and many more. 

As the radio programme gains in audience and popularity, it continues to  broaden the knowledge and understanding among the Georgian population, including on human rights, liberties and participation in decision making. Based on the community consensus and multi-lateral collaboration, this outreach initiative has a great capacity to achieve numerous positive results. 

Radio shows are complemented by online forums at the station's website and in social media. The latest issues of the programme may be downloaded from Facebook. 

More than 90 high school and university students took part in Holocaust Remembrance events organized by the UN Information Office (UNO) in Tbilisi.

On 27 January at Amirani theatre, students attended a screening of “The Rescuers”, which tells the stories of 13 unsung heroic diplomats who saved thousands of Jews during World War II. 

The film was followed by a panel discussion in which the participants paid tribute to Holocaust victims and remembered the famous Georgian cleric, theologian and historian St. Grigol Peradze who lived in Poland during World War II. While he sheltered many people during the war, he was caught by the Nazis, jailed in the Auschwitz concentration camp and killed on 6 December 1942. 

One student, 19-year-old Nino Kakhiani, noted that “The Holocaust is a strong reminder for all of us that we should work  actively to promote tolerance and to fight against bias, hate and bigotry in all its forms. We can stop history repeating itself by promoting inter-faith understanding and educating equality and mutual respect".

UNO aims to further education on and remembrance of the Holocaust in an effort to help prevent future acts of genocide.