Care for 20 homeless people in Tbilisi, Georgia

Project Report | May 26, 2025
Removing barriers to a good education in Georgia

By Sarah Gale and Nino Chubabria | Project Leader and Project Director

We all know how important education is for building a future. Sadly for those who are already vulnerable, accessing education is not always straightforward. Here at Mkurnali we do our best to overcome the difficulties and make sure that as many beneficiaries as possible are either in education, vocational training or employment.

Vlad, one of our beneficiaries, had a very particular obstacle in his way. Fortunately, our lawyer, Inga, was able to help. The story began when Vlad signed up for vocational school and was accused of faking his high school diploma because of missing official stamps and a strange signature. His old school had merged with another, making things harder to confirm. The Ministry of Education couldn’t verify the diploma, as records were moved to the Tbilisi Central Archive. When they checked, the list of graduates was missing the former director’s signature, who had passed away. The deputy director vouched for Vlad and agreed to testify in court. Teachers and classmates backed him up with photos and other proof. In the end, the court ruled in Vlad’s favor, ordering a new diploma. With the fresh certificate, the case was dropped, and Vlad finally got to continue his studies.

Our director, Nino, has also been helping some of our younger residents with their school work. She explains, 'At the Mkurnali shelter, three school-age kids are catching up on their studies. Christina misses a lot because of her sports schedule, Celia’s education wasn’t a priority where she lived before, and Niko is just getting started. I tutor them daily, sometimes online, and have brought in an English tutor to help out. The hard work has paid off—grades are up, and Celia’s doing especially well after struggling before. The English teacher also runs a trial programme for adults, and if it keeps going strong, we’ll keep it running.'

As you can see, we are more than just a homeless shelter, working hard to make sure all our residents have a positive future. Thank you for all your help and support. We could not do it without you.

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Jan 29, 2025
New year - old hopes still alive

By Sarah Gale and Nino Chubabria | Project Leader and Project Director

Dear friends, we hope that this message finds you well. We ourselves are coming out of a rather difficult period. Towards the end of 2024 a disgruntled former beneficiary made a complaint against our charity. Quite rightly, the complaint needed to be thoroughly investigated. After investigation not one element of the complaint was upheld. Sadly, we are still feeling the impact of the whole episode. Because a complaint was made to City Hall about our loft extension, we were prevented from connecting the new rooms to the heating system. This means that two families will need to wait until May before they can move in.

While we may not have managed to move forwards as fast as we would have liked, we have managed to celebrate the New Year with our residents and former residents. We are very grateful to you for your donations, which helped us to distribute food parcels to our former residents who still rely on us for help. We were also able to distribute dishes and blankets, which were donated by a local supporter.

As we look back on last year, we can also celebrate the achievements of one of our younger residents - Christina. Once again, our young gymnast has brought great pride and joy to our shelter. She won the team event at the gymnastics World Cup in Portugal, and came second in the individual event in the Champions Cup in Poland.

Our residents continue to work in our enamel jewellery-making workshop and in our printer cartridge refilling workshop. We have also bought an electric bike so that one of our beneficiaries can work delivering take-aways. As ever we are adapting to keep up with the times: we are developing designs and teaching the skills needed to make woven bags and toys. We are hopeful that this will allow us to continue providing work for women at our shelter.

Lastly, there is an opportunity in September of this year for our supporters to visit us and also tour our beautiful country. Please message us (julia@stgregorysfoundation.org.uk) if you would be interested in joining in.

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Oct 2, 2024
Two families find a home

By Sarah Gale and Nino Chubabria | Project Leader and Project Director

Arthur and Christine's home with work ongoing

Residents are able to stay at our shelter for as long as they need, but it is not a long-term solution. We are always keen to find ways to enable them to sustain themselves living independently. That involves providing training and help finding work. We also often go to great lengths to make sure they have a roof over their heads.

Some time ago, Arthur and Christine moved out with their 5 children. They live in a nearby village in what can only be described as a hut. It has no kitchen or bathroom and is totally inadequate for the family. Help has come from our local mosque, a local German school and a corporate sponsor to buy materials for an extension. Our volunteers have been travelling out to the village each weekend to build the extension and to try and improve living conditions for the family.

In another case, Marika, her husband and young son also needed our help. Marika's mother died when she was young and she grew up with her grandmother and uncle. When she married she moved out, but rising rental prices meant that the family had to move flat frequently. Marika's husband went abroad to find work. At first he sent money home, but gradually his contributions tailed off to nothing.

Fortunately, when we were meeting Marika, she mentioned that no-one in her family had an appartment apart from her grandmother's, which was destroyed. This all sounded rather strange, so we investigated further. The appartment block had indeed been demolished for redevelopment, and Marika's grandmother and uncle (both now deceased) had not been listed on the title deeds.

We visited the site, where now new flats were being built. The only lead we were given was the address for the chair of the old condominum association, who we visited the next day. She told us that the flat had been empty for a while after Marika's uncle died, but then had been privatised by a neighbour. Further digging led to the discovery that Marika's grandmother had never formalised her ownership of the flat after it was given to her by the local metallurgic plant. The notary who had privatised the flat for the neighbour had already been convicted of various misdemeanours and had acted illegally in this case too.

We are very grateful to the donors who pay our lawyer's salary and make it possible for her to fight for our residents and other beneficiaries. Thanks to Inga, our lawyer, we were able to go to court and win Marika back her property rights. She now has her name on one of the new flats that is being built and will soon have a secure home for her and her little boy.

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