A long winter

There is now no place, however small and decentralized, that can be free from the excesses of history. 30 years after independence, Georgia, between Europe and Asia, is increasingly contested between the West and post-Soviet revanchism; her remarkable democratic path does not protect her from the risk of authoritarian drift in the Russian sphere of influence.

Society is divided. The opposition to the government gathers around the president Salomé Zourabichvili, a determined pro-European. The EU explicitly grants hope of future membership, on the condition of reforms - from corruption to electoral law... Reforms that the government for its part is boycotting.
The country is not currently directly involved in a conflict, but is suffering heavily from those that are bloodied in the region. It has welcomed many refugees from Ukraine, and for some time an even greater number of young Russians who wanted to avoid being called to arms. Two of its regions remain controlled by separatists, and the Black Sea, its main trade route, is a battlefield.
A great tangle of power struggles and unresolved issues, which, even after 30 years of building a new country, means that for the still many poor, solidarity is almost the only resource.

The arrival of winter always remains an emergency to be faced. And it is in this time that, together with our great friend Father Witold Szulczynski, we have defined the collaborations to be implemented in the coming months. To continue to give what is needed to those who lack it, and implement initiatives to generate opportunities for young people and communities.
Support will be increased for the increasingly vital assistance program for non-self-sufficient elderly people in Tbilisi: there are now 250 of them, followed in different areas of the city by a group of doctors, nurses and operators who bring them medicines, food, diapers and other basic supplies. Also trying to contribute to the support of many other poor people with food and fuel for heating, which are extremely necessary to face the hardest months of the cold season. If assistance to those who succumb to the emergency is vital, it is no less important to generate new opportunities, even in an entrepreneurial form.
As in recent years, we will collaborate first and foremost with quality equipment for tailoring and shoemaking workshops, also open to employing disabled people.
The small Salesian community of which Father Witold is responsible is engaged in the creation of an important work, according to the specificity of his charism: a professional school for a few hundred students, aimed at professionals in the hotel and tourism sector, still very important in the economy of the country. On this basis, we also intend to create laboratories, both to propose at least some of the typical products of local craftsmanship, and to compete on some food production, for example a quality biscuit factory.

Thanks to the generous contribution of a company, this year it was possible to send all the material necessary for painting the exteriors and interiors of the buildings. We are now taking up the challenge to equip the school with a large photovoltaic system: an essential piece for its sustainability, thanks to good solarisation, and the possibility of transferring the energy produced to the national grid, a more efficient and less expensive solution than a stand system -halo. Pieces of the future: together, possible.


Mauro Palombo
NP December 2023