Stories that make history

Georgia's fate is once again in the balance. A tiny country in the Caucasus, which regained independence in 1991 after the dissolution of the USSR, whose geographical position conditions its geopolitical position.

In a troubled scenario, we live a fixed point: the 25 years now of collaboration in helping the poor, with the initiatives of our friend Father Witold Szulczinsky, first as director of Caritas, and now as head of the Salesian community. Starting from the important support for the construction of the Casa dei Ragazzi, a 5,000 m2 building built years ago to serve the boys and girls who had as their living space only the street, the cold and hunger.

Now the situation seems different, but in reality only partially. Tbilisi – where almost half of Georgians live – today has a beautiful historic center, with restaurants, bars, shops stocked with all kinds of products, a “normal country”. But you only have to go outside to see the difficulties of many, the widespread poverty that still persists. Like in the countryside, where it still represents more than half of the workforce: the number of tractors is growing, but much of it is still subsistence agriculture, done by poor farmers who work and plow with a donkey, and those who can with a horse. The level of social protection is very low. The situation is particularly difficult for large families, refugees (who are still many) and also for the elderly, who express themselves in a saying: “a pension is too much to die on, but too little to survive on”.

Our collaboration continues in helping the home care program for non-self-sufficient elderly people in Tbilisi, and for some production and work projects born in the area, from crafts to the transformation of agricultural and livestock products. In recent years, it has also been articulated in supporting the completion of an important work, an initiative of the Salesian community: a professional training school, oriented towards the tourism and hotel sector, a resource for the country, open especially to boys and girls from more difficult conditions.
It will also be a shelter for those experiencing a particular emergency: the many boys and girls who at 18 leave the orphanage and have nothing to count on, no help, or where to go, except back on the street...

Every initiative to help the poor also becomes a moment of communion between the churches: the only criterion for help is poverty itself, it does not matter whether you are Orthodox or Catholic, believer or non-believer. Rather, doing everything so that Catholic Christians are good Catholics and Orthodox Christians are good Orthodox.

The challenge is always to help build a future for people who are excluded; in the urgency of situations of abandonment, which cannot wait…
We are now preparing, as soon as possible, another container of materials and equipment for the new house: photovoltaic panels, computers, a community kitchen, furniture, machines for small tailoring, knitting, carpentry workshops, and more.
Once again, meeting and acting around the urgent needs of the poor is going beyond, renewing time. Giving hope to life stories is giving a little hope to “history”.


Mauro Palombo
NP December 2024