Keighley's voluntary sector chief has returned from a week helping develop community groups in the former Soviet state of Georgia.

Caroline Schwaller trained the people who run grassroots groups supporting people across the poverty-stricken country.

Keighley Voluntary Services allowed Caroline, its chief executive, to spend a week on secondment to the international aid project.

European countries are providing cash to help Georgia develop a much-needed network of community and voluntary organisations.

The training included how to get people involved, how to motivate them, how to run groups and how to turn an idea into reality.

Caroline and her colleague spent the week in the capital city, Tbilisi, working with about 12 groups, and praised their warmth and generosity.

Caroline says at first the Georgian volunteers were sceptical she would understand their problems, until they realised people in Britain also suffer poverty and disadvantage. She says the voluntary sector in Georgia is in its infancy, forming only in the past five years, even though the country won its independence in 1991.

The country has suffered political unrest over the past decade and unemployment is believed to be as high as 25 per cent.

"It was very interesting to be working in a country in the post-Soviet era and see the difficulties, the effects on the infrastructure," says Caroline.

Community work is focused on basic needs, such as hot meals for pensioners, restoring gas pipelines and ensuring reliable electricity.

Caroline adds: "It's very much local people's responses to local needs, the sorts of things we take for granted. People are beginning to look for their own solutions."

"The population was very passive. They come from a mentality where they were reliant on the state. The apathy is not laziness, it's just that they've never had to find their own solutions."

Caroline now hopes cash can be found for the community volunteers in Georgia to travel to Keighley and learn from groups here.