Care for 20 homeless people in Tbilisi, Georgia

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day of warm glows as we focus on generosity.  My inspiration is the young people living at our shelter, who are leading the way, giving from their meagre salaries to keep another young lad off the streets.  This is their story.

“Meet Luka”, Jemal said to me, and turned on the lights. It was getting dark outsideand I was sitting in the dimly lit room with a computer. I looked towards the door, the guys entered the room and sat on the sofa. I was watching them silently, because I couldn’t understand who Luka was: he was dressed in clean clothes and looked beautiful. He was about 11-12 years old, not really ‘’a child working on the street’’ type. Jemal broke the silence again, “I met him on the street. You know, nothing can escape my eyes… It seemed he wanted to find work there. It was obvious that the streets are no place for him. I walked straight up to him, introduced myself, told him that I was aware he was new there and asked him to tell me what forced him to come out in the streets”. Jemal is our assistant and besides caring for the shelter he goes out in the evening to give assistance when needed to young people in the street.

He continued: “Luka told me that he had 5 siblings, that his father died six months ago. His mother was sick and unable to work, that his elder sister and brother were studying well and they couldn’t afford to work, since they had a lot to study. As for him, he was fast at doing his homework and had more free time, so he decided to get a little money from the street and help out his mother. I promised to help him. Luka then asked me imploringly: “Do you promise to help me?”

Other Mkurnali residents were also in the room. One of them said, whose name is also Jemal: “Luka, look. Streets are bad, not only will you make no money out there, but a lot of bad things happen on the streets. Do you know how many bad people we have seen there?” He then added: “And we've seen beating, fights, humiliation, even imprisonment,” – he continued. “We feel sorry that you have had to do this. Do not quit studying, we will help you. If "Medicare" does not have the funds, we will save some from our salaries and provide you with products every month. You can’t get more than that by yourself”.

Everyone looked to me for approval.

I got the phone number of Luka's mother and called her. I told her everything and offered her to come with us to buy the products for her family. She happily agreed. We sat in my car and went to ‘’Carrefour’’ supermarket where we bought products for 2 weeks and then we drove her home. We promised to help them as long as we could. Luka also promised us to study well and that he would never work on the streets.

Every day we feed around 27 children and teenagers who are still on the streets of Tbilisi, as well as the 14 young people who live at our shelter. It costs just £1.50 or $2.00 to feed a street child for a day and the number we can feed sadly depends most on our income, not on the numbers needing our help.  

If you can help this Giving Tuesday, GlobalGiving will add to your donation if you make it by midnight tonight (ET).  All gifts are very gratefully received and will be put to work helping the most vulnerable children and young people.

We believe generosity is catching! We’d like to share with you a couple of heartwarming stories about infectious generosity which have changed lives.  One of the families you have been helping at our shelter, and some children we didn’t know have a new start thanks to the kindness of strangers.

Back in June we told you about Artur and Christine and their four children.  Having lived at our shelter for some time, they have been able to buy a small shack in a village near Tbilisi.  It doesn’t look like much, but this shack offers a great opportunity for the family to live independently at last, particularly since it comes with land so they can grow food.

Artur and Christine are trying to bring the shack into shape as a house and have already done a lot of work on it. Now they need to have basic living conditions to move in. Each month they pay towards the cost of the house, but that leaves them with nothing to furnish it.  Our assistant, Jemal, posted their story on social media and had a fantastic response. One kind woman gave them money, so that they could buy a water pump to put in their yard. (The water pressure brought to their house is so weak, they would have not have proper water otherwise.) Other people donated furniture, household items and even doors and window.  Jemal asked our neighbour, who owns a truck, if he could help us move these items to the village. The neighbour agreed to help and only took the money for petrol.

Christine and Artur now have beds, cupboards, chairs, duvet covers, mattresses, clothes, books and toys for the kids. The whole family is so happy. Now they just have to build on another room and then they will at last be able to move in and live as an independent family for the first time in their lives.

Our aim of course is for all of our residents to go on and live successful, independent lives.  A couple of days ago we were delighted to hear from Marta, who lived at our shelter for many years with her two children.  After a great deal of hard work and determination, she is now living independently and has a stable job.      

Marta read on social media about two orphans who lost their mother, father and uncle in one year. The orphans live with their elderly grandmother in Tserovani refugee settlement (they are refugees from South Ossetia, where there has been a war). Marta asked me to help her find them so that she could help the little ones. The telephone number that was indicated in the social media post was always turned off. Fortunately, yesterday the phone was on and we could contact the grandmother and ask her what the children needed the most. The grandmother told us that financial help would be the most helpful, as school and kindergarten are about to begin and the little ones need to prepare. Today we drove go Tserovani. Marta bought a lot of sweets on the way to make the children happy. She gave 300 Lari to the grandmother for their needs. As a thank you, the grandmother picked some fruit in her garden and gave it to Marta.  

We can’t claim credit for Marta’s kind heart, but nevertheless we are still very proud that a person who was raised within our walls is now trying to find ways of helping others. She remembers what she went through herself and so she tries bring joy to other orphans’ lives.

Social media was a key to unlocking the generosity of strangers in both these cases.  If you were moved by the stories, please share them with your networks so we can give a home, food and job training to more young people in need.  Who knows what might happen!