Project Report
| Dec 5, 2013
Thank you for helping feed homeless teenagers
By Nino Chubabria | Project Director
Thank you to everyone who has supported our project in the last year. It has been an exciting year, but each excitement has brought its own difficulties. We organised for 11 boys to be released from prison under a government amnesty, but this meant more mouths to feed. We are very grateful to everyone who has helped us keep our commitment not to turn anyone away who is in need.
This task gets harder at this time of year, as, quite apart from our regular residents, more homeless teenagers come to the house for food and a bed when the weather turns cold. We usually have mattresses and camp beds in every corner through the winter.
Very soon we hope to launch a new car hire business, to be run as a social enterprise. This will help us give our young people vocational training and will help us pay the bills. The first car has been donated for this wonderful scheme by the European Commission. We would give you a picture of it, but apparently it will take two months for all the paperwork to be done to finalise the gift.
We try our hardest to be self-sufficient, but unfortunately, we do still need help to buy food for our young people. Can you help us give them a feast to remember for their New Year celebrations?
Thank you!
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Oct 15, 2013
How you help protect vulnerable homeless teenagers
By Nino Chubabria | Project Director
In August, our charity was informed about a case which took place in a region to the south of Tbilisi. Five young fellows were caught by police; four of them were juveniles. They were accused of a robbery an a shop, but, in reality they even did not know location of the shop. Under psychological and physical violence they were forced to admit the crime in written form and the police wanted to convict them.
We met the chief prosecutor of the region, we had known him for a long time as previously he worked in Tbilisi and he helped us to solve many cases related to street children. During our meeting we told him the case and persuaded him that his subordinates got the confession of the crime by force. After re-investigation of the case, children were declared innocent. One of these fellows had passed the National examinations and without our assistance he would not be able to start university study 15th of September of this year. The court case was raised against violator policemen.
Very often the first contact we have with the teenagers we help is when they are in trouble with the police. We make sure that they are treated fairly in the justice system. Once released, we are able to help some young people to resolve difficulties with their family so that they can go back home, or at least to find other relatives ready to look after them. When a happy ending isn’t as straightforward we need to be able to provide a home, food and either training or employment. With winter on its way, we know that more teenagers will be coming to us from the streets hoping for a hot meal. We need your help to make sure that no-one is turned away hungry.
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Jul 25, 2013
Mother's death means more mouths to feed
By Nino | Project Director
A week ago, the single mother of one of the long term residents of our shelter for homeless teenagers died. Her son's name is Bachi and she leaves him and five sisters, who had nowhere to go but to our shelter. As they are under age we will be looking to see what options the State might offer and then make a decision as to whether the girls would be better off with the option or not. If unsatisfactory, of course we will continue to care for the girls ourselves. We have started on their rehabilitation (alas the family and school/no school life they had had was extremely dysfunctional).
Thank goodness that, with the help of St Gregory's Foundation, we have our own house so that these girls have somewhere to go. Our shelter is only a family sized house, now rather overcrowded, but it is better than the streets.
So here are the residents of Mkurnali House:
- Bachi's 5 newly arrived sisters
- 4 girls, the long term residents we know
- The four girl's 5 babies we know
- 8 long term boy residents, most at work but needing to live 'at home' (ie our shelter)
- the newly released (from prison) brother of one of the long term residents
- 9 boys released in a recent government amnesty. 11 were released in total, but two were found jobs with a furniture factory and have been moved to a province by the company to work on a very large order for Batumi, the resort on the Black Sea.
Our policy to never turn teenagers away when they are in desperate need is being stretched to the limit. We are so grateful to all our supporters, both in Tbilisi and those we have never met around the world, and we trust that you will share our compassion for these newly orphaned children. Can you donate today to help us feed them?
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