Family home shows alternative to orphanages in Georgia
John Budd RUSTAVI, Georgia, July 2007. In the entrance there’s a rank smell of urine and the elevator doors are nailed shut. The building hasn’t seen much in the way of care for years but it’s not alone in that, the whole town looks like a place time forgot. But it is exactly what the United Nations Children’s Fund was looking for and seven floors up helped renovate an apartment for an experiment which if successful could change a lot of lives. The unlikely real estate investment is the centre of a project to help move children out of large orphanages, and back as close as possible to a family environment. Economic decline brings rise in "social" orphans Rustavi sits on a flat and wind swept plain about a 15 minute drive from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It once had a past, a metallurgical factory employed just about everyone. But those times have long gone. In its passing unemployment took its toll on families. And many children were put into local orphanages by parents because they couldn’t afford to care for them. Eighty percent of the children in Georgian orphanages have at least one parent.
Artur is 14. He lived in the Rustavi orphanage for five years. “My family lives in Rustavi. I only see them occasionally.” Last year the United Nations Children’s Fund and a British NGO, EveryChild, set up a partnership to assist the Government to find homes for some of these ‘social’ orphans being cared for at the city’s two orphanages. Social reform in action UNICEF’s Representative in Georgia, Giovanna Barberis, said UNICEF had been pressing for institutional reform for many years and had made great headway at the policy level. “Now we wanted to prove in the field to the Government that there were socially better environments for children which were not more expensive than the institutional system.” Maya Mgeliashvili, project manager for EveryChild in Georgia, says they identified eight children who were a particular problem moving from the orphanage because either their parents didn’t want them back or they had siblings, and, foster parents were unwilling to take more than one child. With backing from UNICEF, EveryChild renovated and furnished the Rustavi apartment. The NGO then employed two full time staff and two relief staff to run the family home. They were provided special training in child development and child rights. “It’s calmer and neater here.” In January the eight children were shifted from the orphanage to the apartment. Of the eight there are two sets of siblings, in one case two brothers and a sister. The children crowd together on a sofa in their apartment and tell us how they feel about their new home and their new family life: “Bizina and Nona (the carers) stay with us all the time; they don’t leave us at the end of the day.” “It’s calmer and neater here.” “We have better living conditions, better food here.” “Bizina and Nona (the carers) stay with us all the time; they don’t leave us at the end of the day.” All the children said they enjoyed the unsupervised aspects of living at the orphanage but they didn’t miss the punishments which were handed out – often slaps and having their hair pulled. “I visited my Granny without asking for permission, and as I got back I was punished – spent two hours locked in the toilet.” Says one, and, another, “Last summer I had fun of cooling myself down in the barrel outside in the yard, and as a result I was locked all wet in the toilet.” At the orphanage schooling suffered because more often than not they skipped classes but now it’s not possible because they are supervised all the time. The children grumble a bit about it but grades are improving and that makes them feel better about themselves. Children's welfare within budget For UNICEF and EveryChild the success of the project was not only see such an improvement in the welfare of the children, they also were able to demonstrate that the family home worked as a system itself, and it cost no more than what the government currently budgets for an orphan child – about $4 US a child. The Government agreed and in May took over the running of the family home.
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