Care for 20 homeless people in Tbilisi, Georgia

In our last report we told you of some of the extra tutoring we have offered to children of our residents.  This summer, we have continued the educational theme by helping a group of four children of former residents.  Having battled homelessness and many other disadvantages, their parents are unable to help them with their school work and they have fallen seriously behind.  In year seven, they did not recognise all the letters of the alphabet.  Each day, our teacher has been offering catch-up lessons, and now they are reading!  Their maths has also made great progress.  Alongside school work, they have also been able to learn new sports and have had outings.  Of course, not all of the children were interested in studying from the start, and not everyone came right away. But once they saw how much fun the others were having — and realised that being here isn’t only about school — some have already expressed a desire to join the programme.

This is not the only way we have been helping our fomer residents.  While delivering food parcels to families living in villages around Tbilisi, we often noticed that their yards were very unkempt.  So during the summer we visited a different beneficiary family each Saturday with the children.  Together we helped clean and organize their yards and surroundings.   The children really enjoy these 'Saturday cleanings. They are excited, enthusiastic, and—most importantly—they are gradually learning how important it is to live in a clean and orderly environment.  After every clean-up, we have a small picnic, which the children absolutely love and look forward to.

Lastly we love being able to report on our young resident, Christina's amazing successes.  This year, she won first place in the World Cup gymnastics competition and took first place in every tournament she participated in!  Thank you to everyone who donated so she was able to join the national team.