I always wanted to tie my life with politics. A lot of people think (and actually I agree) that politics is very dirty business and needs a lot of strength. I want to try myself and see how it will work for me.
Everything started one spring (1997), when my school got the right to elect one person to the further elections in Mtatsminda region to the Youth Parliament (Alternative Parliament). I won school elections, and was approved in the Ministry of Education. So I felt myself as member of the parliament in September of 1997. We spent all Fall and winter in organization of the session, because it was our first session and nobody had any type of experience. We had about 40 people elected from Tbilisi and 280 from other regions of Georgia. We formed 4 factions: Rights', Left', Ecologists', Centrists', also about 12 committees and we discussed how the speaker and co-speakers would work. After really hard work and debates, finally on March 22 the Youth Parliament started its sessions. It was great experience for all of us. I was elected as chairman of Rights' faction and cochairman of the Health and Social Security committee. We had to discuss a lot of issues which involved youth: Tobacco, other health issues, youth rights in the country, right for free speech, education issues, international affairs, etc. We also met our "older colleagues" and had meeting with the speaker of the parliament of Georgia Mr. Zurab Zhvania. Also through the Health committee I had opportunity to connect to the UNICEF.
We learned to respect different ideas, different people, to find some solution on different problems, work in cooperation and to solve important issues together with the opponents. The Youth Parliament was the institute of the youth democracy in Georgia. Now I am done with it, because of my age, but I will hope that they will have sessions in the future. We learned so much that we have to share with our knowledge with other young people.