Care for 20 homeless people in Tbilisi, Georgia

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?