Kato Mikeladze Award 2013
The very first Kato MIkeladze Award ceremony was held at on November 29, 2013. The winner of the Award became Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili - distinguished women's rights defender, devoted feminist, and queer activist in Georgia.
Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili, the founder and director of Women's Initiatives Supporting Group (WISG), has been actively working towards the protection of women's rights since 1993 when she started to work in various non-governmental organizations. At WISG, she coordinates the program on lesbian and bisexual women. Besides activist work, Ekaterine is the author of numerous articles, research studies, training manuals, and policy documents. She has founded the first Georgian language LGBT web-source – www.minority.ge.
Ekaterine has graduated from the faculty of Physics at Tbilisi State University; she studied journalism at Greek-Georgian humanitarian academy, and also underwent German Studies program. During 2005-2006, she has been the head of experts committee on women's program at “Open Society Georgia Foundation”. In the years of 2006 and 2009, Ekaterine worked as a program manager at “Inclusive Foundation” and as an editor of LGBT journal “ME”. As a researcher, she works on the issues of gender and sexuality, specifically, she studies the representation of sexual orientation and gender identity in Georgian media.