Keti Kartsydze joined the SFL team in the Czech Republic in early 2021, and since then organized a number of local events and worked with the team on several regional conferences. Furthermore, Keti was also part of the team that published the group’s paper on the end of the gold standard.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Keti also participated in the team’s effort to research and share useful information, and organize aid to the country, as well as safe travel routes and accommodation for those wishing to leave.
In the past months, Keti has also been speaking about the conflict and particularly about how it’s viewed by the general public, the media, and the sentiment in the public discourse towards providing Ukraine with aid across Europe.
However, Keti understands that the strong moral and emotional appeal to support the Ukrainian cause may sometimes not be enough to bring people to action when they are safe in their home countries. And as a project manager in one of the Czech Republic’s largest data analytics companies, she also has an appreciation for data driven approaches.
In her talks, Keti therefore focuses on the differing trends of support for Ukraine in different countries and regions over time since the start of the conflict, and maps the shifting viewpoints regarding the conflict. As winter comes and Europe is about to feel direct consequences of the war on increased gas prices, understanding the trends that Keti presents will be vital for liberals in the debates and political battles to come, so that they can focus on key issues and debunk myths efficiently.
The first event that Keti organized on the topic took place very soon after the war started, on March 9 in Prague, where the president of the Union of Georgian Students addressed the Czech audience and put the ongoing invasion in the context of the experience of Georgians, who were themselves invaded by Russia in 2008.
In August, Keti addressed a group of our most active European coordinators attending the Top Leadership Retreat in Sarajevo with her talk. Hearing her talk in Sarajevo, our team in Uppsala, Sweden, then invited Keti to speak to their audience as well this November. In December, Keti was selected to participate in Students For Liberty’s Women For Liberty conference in Washington, D.C..
“I am very grateful to have these opportunities,” Keti says about the talks she has given. “The opportunities to discuss issues that are extremely important to me and to hear what students with very different backgrounds have to say about them. They motivate and inspire, keeping my ‘eternal student’ spirit alive.”
And we hope this will continue to be the case! Keti will be continuing her efforts right where it matters most in 2023, having joined the UN mission in Odessa, Ukraine.
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This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the organization as a whole. Students For Liberty is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions.
