Lia Gigauri, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, opened the seminar. She talked about the importance of legal education and preventive programs in schools. Also she talked about the importance of interagency cooperation in order to prevent violence among teenagers.

School directors, resource officers, representatives of NGOs and state agencies also attended the meeting. US delegation, coordinators of formal and non-formal school programs and experts who include officials from police departments, school resource officers, heads of Albany and Buffalo Police Athletic League, coaches of schools’ sport-teams and female and male basketball teams are visiting Georgia for this seminar.

General partners of the program “Let’s play Basketball-Georgia” are: Office of Resource Officers of Educational Institutions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia and Georgian Basketball Federation. Children and Youth National Center and Tbilisi Youth European Center are also supporting the program.

Four thematic presentations were made during the seminar, which were dedicated to the cooperation that exists in USA between schools, local government, police department and NGOs. American police officers and representatives of Police Athletic League shared their experience with Georgian colleagues about preventive measures and extracurricular relationships with juveniles. In particular, they shared their experience in preventive programs of police department on the example of city Albany. They talked about the role and function of school resource officers. They introduced the programs of NGO Police Athletic League, extracurricular programs for schools and tactics of their organization.

“Let’s Play Basketball-Georgia” will contribute to prevent crime among juveniles.