With the ever-growing network of European Students For Liberty, students from more than 35 countries defend liberty by organising everything from small events to large scale campaigns.
And every year, someone new comes in with an impact so immediate that it’s hard to believe they just became involved in the pro-liberty movement. These are the people we celebrate with the Newcomer of the Year award, and its 2025’s recipient is Nino Khvedeliani.
Nino joined our team in Georgia in May, 2024, after attending the largest LibertyCon Europe to-date, hosted in Tbilisi. Within months, her leadership stood out and she stepped up as a National Coordinator for Georgia in October of the same year.
Drawing from her HR background, Nino revitalized the team’s onboarding strategy and created a strong, decentralised group. By introducing new team management practices, she managed to re-energise the team, and, later on, shared her strategy with other European chapters, leaving a lasting mark internationally.
She also co-organised the Tbilisi Regional Conference, one of the biggest initiatives in the teams’ history, having brought together almost 400 students and multiple NGOs, just ahead of the critical election in late October.
After large-scale vote rigging by the country’s ruling party and the resulting political crisis, Nino led the Save Georgia’s Liberal Future campaign, fundraising over $5000 to provide support for political prisoners and their families.
Throughout all that, she also managed her team’s social media efforts, increasing the reach and engagement tenfold, and in February, 2025, she organised an in-person training for our coordinators in Georgia, where the students learnt essential skills in order to be better able to face the challenges ahead.
Whether online or in-person, her work always brought people together and boosted their motivation.
In less than a year, Nino has transformed the Georgian team’s structure and processes, as well as increased its reach and global importance as an example of the real impact a student organisation can accomplish. Therefore, we are proud to recognise her as the winner of the 2025 Newcomer of the Year.
