Nino Gelashvili

Nino Gelashvili is a capacity building officer at the International Committee of the Red Cross Georgia delegation. She attended the 2013 Human Rights Advocates Program. 

Nino originally set out to be a sociologist but reports, “I decided to work in human rights instead because I had an urge to go to the field, to hear the stories of people, and to make change.” After her studies in England and the Netherlands, Nino returned to Georgia shortly before the war with Russia broke out in 2008. Gelashvili says, “The war was the biggest incentive to change my profession and to begin working in the sphere of human rights. There were cases of rape, hostage taking, the destruction of houses, forcible displacement, and other violations. I witnessed the horror of this conflict with my own eyes, and it motivated me to bring tangible change for those effected.” 

Nino began working with Human Rights Priority and traveled around the country to document cases of war-related violence. Nino helped to present cases before national courts & the European Court of Human Rights. Nino says, “We helped those affected by the war to see what options they had, which they weren’t aware of due to their deep shock. I felt that I was truly doing something to help in the aftermath of the conflict and it felt good. The strongest feeling that I have is my desire to help those in vulnerable situations. I realized that I want to keep stakeholders and the government awake and not give them room to do the wrong thing.” 

Nino and two colleagues went on to establish their own organization, Youth for Justice. The organization first began to work on issues around the access to health care for prisoners. 

Nino says of her HRAP experience: “When I got back to Georgia, I was eager to bring something with me from here, which is funding. One of the main priorities in coming here was to create connections, to help raise funds to enable our organization to function efficiently and effectively. This program helped immensely in this direction - there have been many opportunities to meet with donor representatives, to present our work, and to start collaboration. 

“The program had an immense impact on my professional development in the sphere of human rights. It has equipped me with those skills that are necessary for unbiased, efficient, and proactive advocacy campaigning and for providing assistance to vulnerable groups. My intellectual horizon was enlarged via interesting reflections over various human rights issues with my fellow colleagues as well as through discussions held during workshops and trainings with leading human rights organizations. HRAP helped me in developing out-of-box approaches towards different thematic issues.” 

Nino reports that she also highly valued the skill-building workshops, especially the six-part workshop on research, documentation, and writing, which was led by Diederik Lohman and Jane Buchanan of Human Rights Watch. Of her fellow HRAP participants, Gelashvili says, “It has been good to have a chance to see the different approaches to prisoner rights and prison reform. I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know people. I know that our roads will cross someday. Our work is not only for our own countries, it has bigger outreach potential.” 

Nino has since joined the civil service within the Government of Georgia, first as the Head of Analysis, Strategic Planning and Coordination Division at the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Aid of Georgia (2013-2014). She later served as a program manager at the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation of Georgia where she worked on a joint project implemented with the help of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2014-2016). 

Nino continued working on refugee problems while serving as a team leader at the Consortium Legal Aid Georgia, an umbrella organization uniting four Georgian non-governmental organizations under the framework of Norwegian Refugee Council, where she led information, counselling and legal assistance program in 2017-2018. She is now a capacity building officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross (Georgian delegation). 

- Article updated by Chiora Taktakishvili, Fulbright Exchange Visitor, June 2019