European Students For Liberty operated in 42 different countries last year. Our volunteers around the continent hosted events and conferences, wrote articles, and ran campaigns with real-world impact.
Our Georgian chapter did all of that and more, all the while defying an increasingly authoritarian regime. For this exceptional work, Students For Liberty Georgia more than earned the title of our 2026’s Group of the Year!
As much as no classical liberal is a great friend of the government, in the case of our team in Georgia it is unfortunately no hyperbole. The Georgian government has over the last year gradually restricted freedom of speech and association, imprisoning protesters for even standing in front of the parliament, shutting down think tanks and other organisations, and generally freezing the opposition activities and the entire NGO sector.
It is in this environment that our team has persisted in spreading the ideas of liberty as one of the last remaining liberal organisations still in operation, speaking out about human rights, liberal democracy, geopolitics and the country’s future within the European structures and away from Russia, free media and independent judiciary.
And they did not hold back doing so; the team has experienced a major expansion, and throughout the year, they hosted 35 events and 10 full-day conferences, in total welcoming almost 2000 in-person attendees, and reaching another 400 000 online.
The team’s events included major conferences in the capital city of Tbilisi, home to one third of the Georgian population, including a conference on the hybrid threats to the region, as well as events on censorship, rights of women in a repressive society, practical trainings on how to speak up for individual rights, and of course, the traditional Technology and Freedom conference, featuring digital liberty-themed art work, all the way to flat seminars resembling the 1980s dissident period before the fall of communism.
Still, our Georgian team wanted to make an impact beyond the capital city. As the first of our chapters, they piloted a roadshow-style campaign that had since been implemented in Italy, Switzerland, and Romania, to bring the ideas of sound economics and financial literacy to smaller towns in the country.
They travelled around Georgia and hosted small events and medium sized conferences, thus far reaching directly around 200 students who would have otherwise never had access to such courses, and further events are currently in development.
With the relaunch of the Merani platform, the team also became an important media presence, as one of the last remaining classical liberal voices in Georgia. Through Merani, the team hosted writing competitions and writing trainings, giving voice to a generation of young students, who can easily feel silenced as the country’s government continues its onslaught on universities and independent media.
As objective information sources are becoming scarce, the Georgian team’s channels have also become a news source for many young Georgians without access to other trusted outlets, and their pages have gained followers who place the trust in the Students For Liberty chapter to deliver news untainted by the pro-Russian government’s narratives.
Finally, despite all these challenges, the team still found the time to care about infringement of the rights of others: they were strongly represented at the Ukrainian Renaissance in Lviv, where Kesaria, the team’s National Coordinator, spoke about how students can make a meaningful impact in improving the situation in their countries, in front of an audience of over 250 students from 27 countries.
They also launched and coordinated our All Eyes on Iran campaign last winter, monitoring the developments and raising awareness of the human rights abuses by the regime, and last but very much not least, they helped our new chapter in Armenia get off the ground by hosting trainings and providing assistance to the new volunteers from Yerevan.
Through all of these efforts, Georgian Students For Liberty truly stand at the frontlines of the struggle for a freer future, and given all their courage and entrepreneurial efforts to continue reaching audiences seeking liberal ideas in a more and more restricted environment, there can be no other Group of the Year in 2026.
