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“We all need help sometimes...”
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Author: By Tony Hanmer
The above words became my main point in a short speech I made to three teenage orphan siblings in Akhalsopeli, Kakheti this weekend. My wife and I had hosted the girl, 14 years old, this weekend in Tbilisi, along with her best friend, our niece. We returned her home, along with a new washing machine the purchase of which sales from my ongoing photographic exhibition, “A Taste of Svaneti”, had allowed. As I had decided, all such funds would go to the support of this girl and her two 17 year old brothers, who lost their mother several years ago and their father in mid-May this year.
We didn’t spend long at their house. Their aunt and uncle are with them at the moment, and this was just an introduction. I hope to be of more help to the family in the future, because a single visit and a single gift don’t go far, when there are needs like several years of school to finish and considerations of what to do to put bread on the table in those years and beyond. I said my piece, hoping it would blunt the effect of having total strangers visit and bring “charity”. Who doesn’t need help from others, ever?
From there we visited relatives of my wife, and waited for the lady of the house to come back from a long day’s work in the vineyards. She does this work daily at the moment, rising at 5:30 in the morning, going out with other ladies to this or that farm as temporary labour. They are home at about 6 pm so, with walking or being driven to the job and an hour’s break during which they eat whatever lunch they have brought, it’s quite a long day... for 15 lari. Her husband has spent spells in Turkey on similar work, and it seems that they are just getting by, with two teenage children in school. Typical of many people in this country.
I am always struck by the beauty of Georgia, and its sheer fecundity, especially in the growing season. As I have been told, this country was per capita the richest republic in the Soviet Union. The favourite tourist destination. Then came the breakup of that Union, Georgia’s own civil wars, and general infrastructure breakdown, resulting in what I would describe as a generally traumatized country. Kakheti, the main agricultural area of Georgia, was not exempt.
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Netherlands and UNHCR allocate $2.7 million for Georgia
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Author: By Ia Natsvlishvili
The government of Netherlands and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has joined its forces to help Georgia’s displaced people.
Pieter Jan Langenberg, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Simone Wolken, a Representative for the UNHCR in Georgia, have signed an agreement under which the government of the Netherlands will allocate $2.7 million to promote durable solutions for the displaced.
“This project combines activities to improve the day-to-day living conditions of IDP’s with additional efforts to find a structural solution for their problems within the framework of the Geneva Discussions. In doing so, it builds upon previous efforts supported by the Netherlands to promote peace and stability in the South Caucasus,” Langenberg said, adding that “after visiting a number of the UNHCR’s activities in the Gali region last year, I’m convinced that they are constructively contributing towards these goals.”
The goal of the agreement is to protect human rights within the displaced population, which is a critical component to post-conflict stabilization. Consequently, the project directly supports conflict resolution efforts, through effective protection activities and informed participation in the Geneva International Discussions.
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Tolerance and democratization?
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Author: By Archil Sikharulidze
This column is in react response to the article ‘Violence at Gay Demonstration Exposes Darker Side of Georgian Culture’ published in Georgia Today’s May 25 issue. In the piece, the author, Teona Betlemidze, discusses the clashes that happened on May 17 in Tbilisi, as the NGOs Identoba and LGBT Georgia organized a peaceful march to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The march was interrupted by the ‘radical religious groups’ such as the Union of Orthodox Parents and the Union of St. King Vakhtang Gorgasali. As a result, there was a confrontation.
This day was first celebrated globally in 2004. The date of May 17 was chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. According to the official site of the event: “An International Day Against Homophobia belongs to no one individual. It’s about all people hoping for a prejudice-free world that can provide a place at the table for everyone regardless of their sexual orientation.”
The article also cites Ekaterine Agdomelashvili, Director of the Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group, a local human rights organization, who associates the case with a cultural problem: “Providing her explanation about these latest developments, Agdomelashvili said she sees the problem [intolerance toward gays] lying on the darker side of Georgian culture, the part which prioritizes religion and tradition over human rights.” At the same time, the author cites a comment by the French Ambassador to Georgia, Renaud Salins where he states that “It’s a struggle which is supported by the European Union, by many international bodies and it’s about more than tolerance, it’s about acceptance.”
All in all, the reader would conclude that tolerance toward homophobia and transphobia seems to be an inherent part of the democratization process; which is supported by international bodies. Meaning: that confrontation over the rights of gays is an aspect of the ‘darker side of Georgian culture.’
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Time to put children high on everybody’s agenda
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Author: By Roeland Monasch
1 June is Child Protection day in Georgia as in most other countries in the region. There are good reasons to celebrate. The situation of children is far better now than it was a decade ago. Child mortality has reduced significantly. Access to pre-school is increasing, although there is still room for improvement. Almost all primary school age children are attending school. And more children are being registered at birth.
In recent years, the Government of Georgia has actively sought to put children at the center of its reform efforts. A new national strategy on juvenile justice is yielding results. The education reform process is modernizing the education system. The Child Care Reform is resulting in the closure of the remaining large-scale institutions for children and supporting reintegration of children into their families.
Many will mark the day with various special events for children, organize concerts, games and entertaining shows. I would like to use this opportunity to draw public attention to the excluded children, those children who live in poverty, who are deprived of the opportunity to fully realize their rights.
More than a quarter of families with children in Georgia continue to live in poverty. This, in turn, perpetuates the cycle of poverty across generations. Child poverty often persists throughout the life cycle, meaning that a child born into poverty will likely remain poor for his or her entire life. Poverty in early childhood can cause lifelong cognitive and physical impairments and put children at permanent disadvantage.
Children are more likely to be poor, but less likely to receive social assistance. That is why ongoing reforms of the social protection system is so critical. Children are the future of this country and they must be prioritized in all social protection and poverty reduction programmes.
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How responsible is your cheese?
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Author: By Thomas Reynolds
This column appears twice monthly and discusses current topics that impact youth, women, those affected by conflict and those located in remote villages. Thomas Reynolds is the Mission Director of CARE International in the Caucasus.
The whirring of machinery greeted my ears as I donned a lab coat, hair net and protective covers on my shoes. I followed the transformation of fresh milk to cheese curds which were then formed into Imeretian-style cheese blocks at a processing plant in Tsnisi. It was part of a recent tour of social enterprises in Samtskhe-Javakheti that CARE Caucasus supported the development of over the past three years. I am quite fond of the cheeses of Georgia; I enjoy visiting factories to see how things are made. Besides the production process, I wanted to look at how this enterprise delivers results against what development experts call a triple bottom line: financial, social and environmental.
Founded in 2009, the Tsnisi Dairy plant produces five varieties of cheeses under the brand name “Akhaltsikhuri”. The plant’s owners paired their own invested capital with funding from a project implemented by CARE as well as additional external funding. The result is a locally owned and operated enterprise which sources fresh milk on a daily basis from 350 farmers in the neighboring area. The factory will grow its business to meet existing demand.
The factory represents what John Elkington called the triple bottom-line: a business’ focus on “people, planet, and profit.” It is used for measuring an organization’s total contribution to society.
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