Your Excellency,

Dear Ran,

Thanks for your communication, expressed interest and all the efforts for the benefit of our bilateral cooperation on circular labour migration!

I’ll do my best to timely assist you in obtaining the requested information.

Though, as we spoke first time about this issue two weeks ago and made preliminary general overview of your proposal, which we very much welcome, I mentioned that we would need to know more information about employment opportunities, including conditions, duration and other respective information (when the Israeli side would like to receive first group of workers and what is the preferable number), as well as professional requirements for the recruitment of these workers, in order to provide Georgian position on realistic possibilities to recruit demanded workers, including the numbers.

Questions provided by you are quite broad and therefore informative in a sense that I could pick some information about possible requirements for the workers; As I understood from the questions, requirements include: professional certificate of care-taker, certificate of non-criminal record, medical health certificate, preferable knowledge of languages (Russian, English), ability to pay for the flight ticket to Israel. Though it would be very helpful to receive the above-mentioned information from Israeli side.

As Promised, I’ll come back to you as soon as possible regarding the questionnaire.

Best Regards,

Tea Akhvlediani

Dear Tea,

Yesterday there was another meeting at the Israeli National Security Council and we’re pushing very hard to prioritize Georgian citizens for the purposes of employment as care-workers with elderly and geriatric people in Israel.

In order to make rapid progress – I’d be grateful if you could assist me in obtaining the following information as soon as possible (or, alternatively, direct me to the proper Georgian government departments that have the information):

1.      Are there any proper training institutions in Georgia for care-workers?

2.      If so – are these institutions supervised and monitored by the government?

3.      What kind of training is offered by these institutions? What is the duration of the course? What is the syllabus?

4.      Is the Georgian government able to recruit a large number people, make sure that they’re properly trained and can pay for their own flight-tickets to Israel?

5.      If so – what is your estimate considering the number of Georgian candidates who could be recruited?

6.      What is your estimate concerning the period of time necessary for the recruitment, training, paper-work (e.g. obtaining a ‘certificate of non-criminal record’, medical health certificate?

7.      Would the IOM be involved in the process (we wish to avoid any private/commercial involvement in the process, in order to avoid the possibility of financial exploitation of the candidates)?

8.      Apart from Georgian – would the candidates be able to speak other languages (English? Russian?)

In order to move forward – I need to collect the information as soon as possible. Moreover, I need to demonstrate to the Israeli National Security Council that Georgia can supply such care-workers very soon, otherwise the NSC might turn to other countries instead (e.g. Philippines, Moldova, Ukraine etc.).

Many thanks for your kind assistance,

Ran

Dear Ran,

Your e-mail has just arrived.

So we are in contactJ

As we agreed

Dear Tea,

I hope you, your family and friends are all safe and healthy.

The Israeli government is currently looking into the feasibility of granting work visas to several thousand foreign nationals for the purposes of employment as care-workers with elderly and geriatric people in Israel.

No decision has been taken yet and for now this is only subject to a preliminary examination.

In view of our previous discussions and the excellent bilateral relations between our two countries, we would wish to give potential Georgian applicants a priority. I therefore need to update Jerusalem most urgently on the following points:

1.      Do you think it would be possible to recruit a large number of Georgian care-workers who would agree to travel to Israel for employment?

2.      Can you estimate (just a broad, rough estimate) how many such applicants we could recruit in Georgia?

3.      What would be the time-frame for this (i.e. how long would it take to find and recruit them)?

I fully realize that it’s currently difficult for your to provide accurate estimates due to the emergency work procedures. However, I’m keen to guarantee that prospective Georgian care-workers would get top priority (compared to potential applicants from other countries) – and would therefore be grateful for a preliminary reply as soon as possible.

Many thanks,

Ran

Dear Ran,

Sorry for a bit reply…

This is just a line in response to your e-mail, expressing once again appreciation for your attention and efforts supporting development of our partnership on labor migration.

All the best for now,

Tea

Dear Tea,

I hope you’re well.

As promised, I followed up on our conversation from last week.

My colleagues in Jerusalem reassured me that the draft agreement with Georgia is very high on the agenda, but (as I mentioned during our conversation) any progress is pending the creation of a new, stable government in Israel (hopefully within several weeks).

In any case, today (18^th February) the Director General of the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority is due to meet the Georgian Ambassador, Lasha Zhvania. I hope this will result in some clarification in the short term.

I will continue monitoring this.

Best regards,

Ran

Dear Ran (thanks to address each other by first name, which I like and always preferJ),

Thanks for your prompt reply and readiness to support our cooperation in labour migration sector!

Looking forward to our further communication!

Best Regards,

Tea

Dear Tea (if I may refer to you by your first name?...),

Many thanks for the informative and useful meeting, and for the follow-up email.

I’ve already reported the contents of our conversation to HQ and promise to push it further.

As indicated before, the negotiations are only likely to proceed after next month’s general elections in Israel and the formation of a new government.

Have a good weekend.

Ran

Your Excellency,

Dear Ambassador,

Hope this e-mail finds you doing well!

It was a pleasure indeed to meet you last Tuesday. I enjoyed a lot fruitful and interesting discussions we had!

As promised and agreed, upon your request, I would like to inform that the position of the Georgian side on the draft agreement “on temporary employment of Georgian citizens in specific labor market sectors in the State of Israel” was officially communicated by the Georgian Embassy Note to the MFA of Israel on July 11, 2019. In addition, I’ve been informed that the Embassy of Georgia was in direct communication on this issue with the Deputy Director General, Head of Consular Division of the MFA of Israel.   

If you might have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Meanwhile, wish you all the best!

Best Regards,

Tea Akhvlediani

Deputy Minister

Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories, Labour,

Health and Social Affairs of Georgia

144, A. Tsereteli Avenue

Tbilisi 0159, Georgia