StudioMobile, Georgia

Georgia is a vast country with many isolated communities and one in which a lot of women experience inequality as ‘normal’: in employment, in politics, in marriage and in the family. With their travelling video theatre and media productions for radio and TV StudioMobile is reaching large audiences with its portrayal of women’s lives and messages about women’s rights.

The women of StudioMobile talk about the situation of women in such a way that women can identify, illustrating their stories with short documentaries.

A new women’s group from an isolated mountain village wrote to Mama Cash: ‘They arrived in a van, got the young women together and showed us films about our lives! We didn’t know anything about women’s rights; we didn’t know that a women’s movement existed. Following their visit, we started to have meetings and make plans, and we asked them whether they would help us to set up a group ourselves’. This is how all over Georgia many women’s groups started.

Alongside this work in ‘the field’, StudioMobile supported a growing number of female politicians in the production of TV advertisements for the 2006 elections. StudioMobile filmed the women taking part in local elections, ultimately giving more women the idea that they could become involved in politics and civil society..

Liana Jaqueli, chairwoman of Studio Mobile: ‘I can hardly imagine the enhancement of women’s rights in Georgia without Mama Cash. Timely support of Mama Cash in 2006 enabled us to implement this project, which not only increased women’s activism and solidarity, but also raised awareness and interest in women’s political participation in Georgian society. The issue was subject of debate in several well-known Georgian TV and radio programmes.’

StudioMobile received grants from mama Cash in2000, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007.