Care for 20 homeless people in Tbilisi, Georgia

Our young people look after each other.  It was thanks to them that we got involved in their friend, Maia's case.  Maia was raised in a wealthy family, her father was a professor and her mother was a lecturer, they were raising her only child in luxury. When she was 7 years old, her parents were in a horrible car crash and they both died. As soon as they passed away a lot of relatives appeared that Maia didn’t even know about. The relatives took everything from her house, and some other relatives moved to the three-room apartment they had (In Tbilisi’s most prestigious district), as if they were going to take care of Maia. She was being abused verbally and physically for a year and when she couldn’t take it anymore she ran away from home and never went back. Suddenly she was living on the streets.

At the age of 16 she fell in love with a boy and they started living together in a rented house. For years they were living peacefully, both of them were working, the boy was working in a workshop, at least Maia thought that he was. One day police came to their house and discovered a lot of stolen items.  Since the boy was not in the house and was in hiding the police caught Maia instead and blamed her for stealing these items.

We investigated and found evidence to prove that the boy was guilty.  We found witnesses and, with the help of street children, we also found the boy. We succeeded in making the boy confess and come to the police. (We also helped him and he was sentenced to prison with agreeable terms.)

Maia was released from prison; we got her apartment back from the hands of her abusive relatives. Maia returned to her own apartment and she is expecting a baby. She is happy and she is looking at the future with hopeful eyes.  This is one more positive result from our programme of legal support for homeless and vulnerable young people that you are helping to fund.

This is not the only good news this month.  We have also reopened our enamel jewelry workshop with the help of another organisation called MAC.  This means that we can give more jobs and training to young people living at our place and to young people who used to live at a shelter for street children that has recently closed.  We have also given a home to some of those from the closed shelter who had nowhere else to go.

We are also helping our wider community.  On the request of the International Women’s Association our boys are delivering food to six elderly people living alone.

Thank you very much for all you do to help our young people to flourish.  If you'd like to help more young people like Maia, then today is a particularly good day to make a donation because it is a GlobalGiving bonus day.  This means that a bonus will be added to all donations made today, 16th March, up until midnight (EDT).