Children, children, and children again…

The Association shows special concern for children, be it its contribution to reviving the tradition of breast feeding or arranging large-scale celebrations for them. The Association is helping regularly the little inhabitants of the Tbilisi Orphanage with clothes and food products (milk powder, medicines, bedclothes, dete rgents etc.).One of the most important undertakings accomplished through the active involvement of Nanuli Shevardnadze helped the Dzegvi (Mtskheta region) rest-home to escape sale. It was given to the deprived children who had been roaming Tbilisi streets, living in yards, woods and the churchyards, where they looked for shelter, until they were given this new opportunity.

It was also through the efforts of the Association that the Kojori children’s former TB sanatorium “Alioni” escaped privatization through auctioning and the little ones have maintained the opportunity to use it as a rehabilitation center for pulmonary and respiratory diseases. 
Almost every year and often several times a year, the Association is extending the hand of help to children’s homes, boarding schools street shelters for children, and various types of juvenile institutions.

Educational workshops in the children’s homes…
A program carried out by the Association with the help of foreign humanitarian organizations in the years 2000-2003 commands special credit, because it envisaged renovation and rehabilitation of the educational work-shops, living sections and dining blocks, as well as providing the work-shops with appropriate equipment and materials. This program was successfully a

The result is imposing: the apprentices of the Tbilisi N1 and N2 children’s homes, of Telavi, Martkopi, Akhalgori, and Senaki orphanages, pupils of the boarding schools for deaf and dumb, the blind children and children with defective articulation were given the opportunity to acquire professional skills to produce ceramic goods, sculpture, and embroidery. It is worth noting that the income accumulated from sales of the goods produced by the children in these workshops returns to the children’s homes to cover their needs. All this is significant because it facilitates integration of handicapped children and children with deficient abilities into a healthy way of life. 
Here is one more example: The pupils and their parents could never imagine that they would ever be assisted so widely in resolving one of the subtlest and most complex problems they were facing. Apart from purchasing and applying hearing apparatus for the children in need, the Association, with the help of foreign friends, managed to purchase beds, tables, chairs, the didactic materials, and the following appliances: the amplifiers, musical centers, videos, a video-camera, TV sets and toys. The children also received clothes and objects for personal use.

Candle production workshop in social therapy house.	Loom workshop at N1 subsidiary boarding school in Tbilisi.

The children are resting; they are at recreation and are celebrating…
Children are always children, and sometimes a show, entertainment or any kind of merriment is more desirable to them than bread… But if the New Year presents are delivered to them from the hands of the First lady, or they are given the opportunity to test the Easter eggs with her, than the festivity will gain a completely different coloring.

At the celebration dedicated to the children's day in boarding-school "Natvris Khe" children were especially joyfull. New year's celebration in pupil's youth palace. 2001

The Association has made it a tradition to congratulate the children living in orphanages and studying at boarding schools, the students of secondary schools and the little patients placed in various medical institutions, on the occasions of Christmas and the New Year, as well as on the Children’s International Day (June 1) and the beginning of the school year. On such holidays members of the Association present them with various sweets and candies; in addition, they frequently offer a surprise and come to visit them together with Santa Claus. 
The fabulous New Year celebration of January 1998, which was held at the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre, was largely acclaimed. It is noteworthy that handicapped children participated in this festivity for the first time. It was especially for them that a track to accommodate wheelchairs was installed in the audience hall, so that the children in wheelchairs would have the opportunity to attend the performances afterwards as well. 
Thousands of children, invitees to such celebrations, will never forget the festivities, distinguished by beauty and emotion, held at the Republican Palace of Young People, at the Children’s Art Gallery, at the Tbilisi Zoo and at various parks and children’s institutions; all that became available to them was through the efforts of the Association.

The duty of organizing celebrations for children was assigned to Nana Bichiashvili, Vice President of the Association. The children’s program of recreation and rest in the summer as well as the winter holidays was distinguished by perfect regularity, which has never been broken. Apart from inviting them to the theatres, exhibitions and concert halls, in 2001 a summer camp “Chiragdani” was opened for blind children in the Ponichala district of the Krtsanisi region. Numerous outings and excursions have been offered to the children elsewhere during all these years. 
During the visit of The Prime Minister of Turkey, Mekhset Ilmaz, to Georgia, the Minister’s spouse invited some of the Georgian children to Turkey. The days spent in Istanbul and Ankara will stay with the children as the most pleasant memories of their childhood. 
Through a joint assistance program of a number of Greek charity organizations and businesswomen, more than 300 children from Georgia were sent to the coastal resorts of the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas with refugee children from the Sukhumi Children’s Theatre “The White Wave”, children with only one parent and children from socially unprotected families among them.