„It’s really hard to be an IDP (= inter­nally dis­pla­ced per­son) in your own coun­try and to have your house so close, but not being able to return to it“, says Eleo­nora Gur­chiani, one of the three women who are try­ing to make their new home Tsint­s­karo a bet­ter place for them­sel­ves, but espe­cially for the ent­ire com­mu­nity. Toge­ther with Neli Ansiani and her for­mer class­mate Tsi­uri Ansiani and many other deeply com­mit­ted women (and men), Nora, as ever­y­body calls her, crea­ted mul­ti­ple self-aid groups, who work on a variety of pro­jects. Toge­ther with dif­fe­rent orga­niza­t­i­ons they are try­ing to improve the cur­rent living con­di­ti­ons of the vil­la­gers.

Nora Gur­chiani about her life in Abkha­zia

Nora is the eldest out of seven child­ren. Toge­ther with her two bro­thers and four sis­ters, she grew up in the Kodori-Region in Upper Abkha­zia. „Both of my par­ents fami­lies were honest and hard-working people“, she says. The fami­lies grew their own vege­ta­bles and „just like in heaven’s gar­den, they har­vested the best kind of fruits“, she explains. Wha­te­ver they har­vested, was natu­ral and the most import­ant thing was, that there was always enough food for ever­yone. „As a family with seven child­ren, we were very rich. It’s not that we had a lot of gold jewelry or money buried somew­here, we just had enough, natu­ral, clean food and we had ever­y­thing we nee­ded“, she adds. All this was not about sto­ring huge amounts of food, but about pro­vi­ding a good living stan­dard. — „Our family was like a fus­sing bee. All of us did some kind of work from childhood on. Ever­yone did what they could.“
When Nora was older, she moved to Abkhazia’s capi­tal Suk­humi, which is loca­ted on the Black Sea coast. There, she lear­ned accoun­ting and star­ted working, but always stayed in close con­tact with her family. She visi­ted her native vil­lage a few times a month and always sup­por­ted her family.

„Even if there’s not­hing, it’s abso­lu­tely pos­si­ble to start from zero.
If you fight, you’ll accom­plish and achieve.“ — Nora Gur­chiani

On the 8th of August 2008 Nora’s home vil­lage Gen­cvishi (loca­ted in the Gul­ribshi Muni­cipalty in Upper Abkha­zia) was bom­bed and on the 9th of August, the 55 year old, as well as her family and the ent­ire vil­la­gers, had to flee. The Russo-Geor­gian War made Nora’s family and many other fami­lies from the Kodori-Region in Upper Abkha­zia (nor­thwes­tern part of Geor­gia) IDP’s for the second time in their lives. — During the War in Abkha­zia from 1992 to 1993, Nora’s native region was bom­bed and the whole family had to flee to Kutaisi, the capi­tal of the Imer­eti Region. „I remem­ber the years we spent in Kutaisi as the most dif­fi­cult ones“, Nora says. Back then, while all women, Child­ren and elder people people left to find shel­ter somew­here else, the men sta­ted in the vil­la­ges.
Still, Nora mana­ged to tra­vel bet­ween Kutaisi and the war region. „I worked there as much as I could, then came back to the city with my har­vest“, she says. „I brought back wha­te­ver my bro­thers and father nee­ded in the val­ley. — I was one of the very few people who could actively tra­vel back and forth to the val­ley“, she adds. — So in the early 90’s, the region alre­ady expe­ri­en­ced the hor­rors of war and not even two deca­des later, the ter­ror began again. For a second time, after having rebuild ever­y­thing from basi­cally not­hing, when the war in 2008 star­ted, the fami­lies from the Kodori-Region had to leave all their belonging behind again.

The first year after their second escape from Abkha­zia, the fami­lies had to live in dire con­di­ti­ons in school buil­dings without water sup­ply or electri­city, in an unhea­ted police sta­tion or in uni­ver­sity faci­li­ties in the cen­ter of Geor­gias capi­tal Tbi­lisi. — But this didn’t make Nora and the other woman give up on life; it made them even stron­ger. „Somehow, during the dou­ble exile we rea­li­zed that we had to fight. Because we sur­vi­ved, we had to strive“, Nora says.

Nora about her Escape from Abkha­zia.

The House of Nora and her her family in Tsint­s­karo.

Taso Foun­da­tion

Because of all the pro­blems and incon­ve­ni­en­ces the IDP’s were fac­ing after their arri­val (see „Ways of Sub­sis­tence“ in the chap­ter „The Vil­lage“), the women quickly rea­li­zed, that the only ones who could change their own living situa­tion, are the women them­sel­ves. Because of that, they were loo­king for a way to find help and finally, Neli Ansiani was the one who got in con­tact with the Taso Foun­da­tion in the first place. She found out about the orga­niza­t­ion through other con­flict affec­ted people, who the orga­niza­t­ion was working with before, and when she went to meet the repre­sen­ta­ti­ves at the office in the cen­ter of Tbi­lisi, she told them about the living con­di­ti­ons of the new arri­vals and soon after that, a mee­ting was orga­ni­zed and the repre­sen­ta­ti­ves, mea­ning Marina Tabu­kash­vili, the direc­tor of the orga­niza­t­ion, and two of her co-workers, came in Tsint­s­karo.

“What we are working on, is the pro­cess of social com­mu­nity mobi­liza­t­ion
of con­flict affec­ted and inter­nally dis­pla­ced people, which doesn’t mean working for the IDP’s,
but working toge­ther with them.“ — Marina Tabu­kash­vili

Taso Foun­da­tion is a non-govern­men­tal orga­niza­t­ion working on many dif­fe­rent pro­blems in several sights of Geor­gian. The orga­niza­t­ion its­elf was foun­ded in 1998, as a women pro­gram of the Open Society Geor­gia Foun­da­tion, and since 2004 inten­si­vely focus­ses on the work with women in rural areas (espe­cially IDP-women), as Marina Tabu­kash­vili explains.
The main pro­blem for the people in rural areas like Tsint­s­karo, which is a glo­bal pro­blem in remote areas all over the world, is the lack of par­ti­ci­pa­tion and access to ser­vices, as well as the lack of efforts put into the deve­lop­ment of these areas by the govern­ment its­elf. — Unfor­t­u­n­a­tely the alre­ady nega­tively affec­ted mino­rity popu­la­ti­ons suf­fer the most.

The orga­niza­t­i­ons uses dif­fe­rent stra­te­gi­cally import­ant work direc­tions, to help people hel­ping them­sel­ves. On the very first mee­ting, which about 40 to 50 people, both IDP’s and non-IPD-resi­dents atten­ded Taso Foundation’s repre­sen­ta­ti­ves tal­ked about the orga­niza­t­ion its­elf, their cur­rent work and the pre­vious pro­jects they did. Marina Tabu­kash­vili then explai­ned to the audi­ence, that „social mobi­liza­t­ion metho­do­logy is abso­lu­tely necessary“ for the vil­la­gers. It is not the organization’s goal to sim­ply dis­tri­bute money, but rather aiming to make the com­mu­nity work toge­ther on their pro­blems, with the sup­port of the orga­niza­t­ion. — The key­word here was taking the law into their own hands.
Very soon, the people rea­li­zed, that Taso Foun­da­tion could pro­vide exactly the kind of help and sup­port the vil­lage nee­ded and on that day, agree­ment about the vol­un­tary par­ti­ci­pa­tion of the people were made. — „This was the necessary first step, because the people of a society, affec­ted by con­flicts and wars, mostly iden­tify them­sel­ves as only mem­ber of a list for the  dis­tri­bu­tion of money and not­hing more. The dis­tri­bu­tion is nee­ded in the first time after a con­flict, but then, ever­yone has to reco­gnize that in dif­fi­cult times, you have to think and act dif­fer­ently, and change some­thing in your own mind, to finally see your­self as an agent of change.“

What makes Tsint­s­karo a spe­cial sight for the Taso Foun­da­tion is also, that (apart from the IDP’s from Abkha­zia), eco-migrants are sett­led here, as well, which are, in Marina Tabukashvili’s words „a really vul­nera­ble group, as there are only very few pro­grams for them“, so luckily now, they bene­fit from the help and assis­tance in Tsint­s­karo as well.

Marina Tabu­kash­vili (second from the left) and Nina Ugrek­he­l­idze (on the right) with two other col­leagues from Taso Foun­da­tion.

The orga­niza­t­i­ons uses dif­fe­rent stra­te­gi­cally import­ant work direc­tions, to help people hel­ping them­sel­ves. On the very first mee­ting, which about 40 to 50 people, both IDP’s and non-IPD-resi­dents atten­ded Taso Foundation’s repre­sen­ta­ti­ves tal­ked about the orga­niza­t­ion its­elf, their cur­rent work and the pre­vious pro­jects they did. Marina Tabu­kash­vili then explai­ned to the audi­ence, that „social mobi­liza­t­ion metho­do­logy is abso­lu­tely necessary“ for the vil­la­gers. It is not the organization’s goal to sim­ply dis­tri­bute money, but rather aiming to make the com­mu­nity work toge­ther on their pro­blems, with the sup­port of the orga­niza­t­ion. — The key­word here was taking the law into their own hands.
Very soon, the people rea­li­zed, that Taso Foun­da­tion could pro­vide exactly the kind of help and sup­port the vil­lage nee­ded and on that day, agree­ment about the vol­un­tary par­ti­ci­pa­tion of the people were made. — „This was the necessary first step, because the people of a society, affec­ted by con­flicts and wars, mostly iden­tify them­sel­ves as only mem­ber of a list for the  dis­tri­bu­tion of money and not­hing more. The dis­tri­bu­tion is nee­ded in the first time after a con­flict, but then, ever­yone has to reco­gnize that in dif­fi­cult times, you have to think and act dif­fer­ently, and change some­thing in your own mind, to finally see your­self as an agent of change.“

What makes Tsint­s­karo a spe­cial sight for the Taso Foun­da­tion is also, that (apart from the IDP’s from Abkha­zia), eco-migrants are sett­led here, as well, which are, in Marina Tabukashvili’s words „a really vul­nera­ble group, as there are only very few pro­grams for them“, so luckily now, they bene­fit from the help and assis­tance in Tsint­s­karo as well.

Self-Aid Groups — Pro­jects — App­li­ca­ti­ons

With the help of Taso Foun­da­tion, the people of Tsint­s­karo dis­cus­sed dif­fe­rent com­mu­nity pro­blems and star­ted to form their first self-aid groups, with Neli Ansiani as their group lea­der; quickly after that, Nora became the lea­der of a second group. First and fore­most, Taso Foun­da­tion taught the women how to write pro­to­cols and app­li­ca­ti­ons about the pro­blems that should be approach, as well as how to cal­cu­late things etc. „Then, we gave the com­mu­nity grants; grants for eco­no­mic activism, but most import­antly grant for social activism, because that is what moves a society for­wards; that is some­thing that the whole com­mu­nity bene­fits from it’s a pro­cess“, Marina Tabu­kash­vili explains. — Topics like women’s rights and dome­stic vio­lence have been addres­sed, as well.

„You can’t solve ever­y­thing, you can’t reach ever­y­thing,
but when you know how to cor­rectly use the infor­ma­tion you have
and are able to find the right con­tact per­son, to talk about your pro­blems or issues,
then not­hing is impos­si­ble.“ — Nora Gur­chiani

One of the first pro­jects back in 2001 was about bio-far­ming, that Taso Foun­da­tion alre­ady offe­red to com­mu­nity in dif­fe­rent sights of the coun­try. The­re­fore the orga­niza­t­ion coope­ra­ted with experts in orga­nic-far­ming who pro­vi­ded the trai­nings. Unfor­t­u­n­a­tely, by that time, and the orga­niza­t­ion only had a small amount of money from Open Society Foun­da­tion New York, that was given to the people in Tsint­s­karo. — Because the orga­nic-far­ming is quiet easy, very pro­fi­ta­ble and showed good results, it was an exam­ple for many people from other regi­ons, so that Taso Foun­da­tion got many pro­po­sals for bio-far­ming since 2012.

Soon, mul­ti­ple self-aid groups were for­med and star­ted working toge­ther, to improve the living con­di­ti­ons of the vil­la­gers. „I was the head of one group“, Tsi­uri Dev­da­riani says. „But it wasn’t really about one per­son, it was about the col­la­bo­ra­tion, because we are depen­ding on each other in a group pro­ject“, she explains, and when the pro­ject super­vi­sor from Tbi­lisi came and asked her, how she mana­ged to do such work, all she could say was, that they did all the work „toge­ther, like one team.“ — Also people from other vil­la­ges in the area joi­ned, several smal­ler groups emer­ged and worked (and still work) sepa­ra­tely, but also toge­ther on many dif­fe­rent pro­jects. — One of many other import­ant pro­jects (not all with the help or Taso Foun­da­tion) was about purcha­sing com­pu­ters, ano­ther one about buil­ding a suing salon and after that, a beauty salon, which is still run­ning today.
Still, Taso Foun­da­tion was one of the most import­ant Orga­niza­t­i­ons for the people in Tsint­s­karo, as they finan­ced nume­rous pro­jects, from the above men­tio­ned mini grants for orga­nic far­ming, right up to finan­cial sup­port for buy­ing books, toys and out­door equip­ment for the kin­der­gar­ten. — „We also have a bak­ery, thanks to the help of Taso foun­da­tion“, Neli says, and apart from that, Taso Foun­da­tion was invol­ved in pro­vi­ding the equip­ment of the gym room, where wrest­ling trai­ning takes place.

Since 2012 seven small pro­jects and mini grants were accom­plis­hed in Tsint­s­karo. After being the lea­der of one self-aid group, Nora became a com­mu­nity worker. She unites and gui­des the groups and helps them to get in touch with dif­fe­rent non-govern­men­tal orga­niza­t­i­ons an aut­ho­ri­ties.

Kodori 2013 — Com­mu­nity Cen­ter

In 2013, 4 years after arri­ving in Tsint­s­karo, the women crea­ted their own foun­da­tion cal­led Kodori 2013. Since then, the orga­niza­t­ion has issued three small grants. „Our first own pro­ject was endo­wing the music/sining class with 1400 Lari (appro­xi­mately 550€/600$) to buy musi­cal instru­ments“, Nora explains. — The big­gest pro­ject Kodori 2013 worked on until today, was the com­mu­nity cen­ter.

After several smal­ler pro­jects, the women of Tsint­s­karo united five orga­niza­t­i­ons and insti­tu­ti­ons to get finan­cial help. „We recei­ved help from Cari­tas Geor­gia and Cari­tas Roma­nia, the Kodori Muni­ci­pa­lity, Taso Foun­da­tion and UN Women“, Nora explains. The goal was, to con­vince the orga­niza­t­ion of the neces­sity of this faci­lity for the vil­lage and they finan­ced the reno­va­tion of the cen­ter. „When we bought the house and reno­va­ted it, it was bene­fi­cial for the whole com­mu­nity. We couldn’t really ima­gine it, a dream came true. We didn’t even have our own hou­ses and the fact that we fought for this shared house and finally imple­men­ting it, made us really happy“, Nora says. „Among others, we got pho­to­co­piers and library books; kids are com­ing here every day, they bor­row the books and prac­tice sin­ging here“, she ampli­fies. — Then the women wrote a pro­ject about the reno­va­tion of the buil­ding. Fur­ni­ture and other equip­ment were finan­ced by the Taso Foun­da­tion, the kit­chen faci­li­ties were finan­ced by Cari­tas.

Faci­li­ties of the Com­mu­nity Cen­ter.

The office of Kodori 2013 is the heart of the vil­lage and has a lot of visi­tors throughout the day. It has many func­tions for the vil­la­gers: it’s a gathe­ring place, a working space and a trai­ning cen­ter. It con­nects people and non-govern­men­tal, as well as govern­men­tal orga­niza­t­i­ons during con­ver­sa­ti­ons, trai­nings and (busi­ness) mee­tings for new ideas and pro­jects, and the­re­fore, a very import­ant faci­lity has been esta­blis­hed in Tsint­s­karo.
Apart from a mee­ting space for daily activi­ties and mee­tings, it can be used as a shel­ter. The­re­fore the orga­niza­t­i­ons purcha­sed infla­ta­ble mat­tres­ses and kit­chen app­li­an­ces for about 40 to 50 people.

For the future of Tsint­s­karo its­elf and the future of the work bet­ween Taso Foun­da­tion and the vil­la­gers, it is Marina Tabukashvili’s approach to sustain and fur­ther deve­lop the alre­ady achie­ved results. More­o­ver she says, that „Kodori 2013 is such a remar­ka­ble part­ner, and it is abso­lu­tely pos­si­ble, that they will one day decide to invite us to one of their one great pro­grams and ask for part­nership.“

Govern­men­tal Help

A huge pro­blem of the IDP’s used to be, els still is the insuf­fi­ci­ent help they receive from the govern­ment of Geor­gia. The small monthly aid of 45 Lari a (appro­xi­mately 17€/19$) is unfor­t­u­n­a­tely not enough to sustain the pre­vious life­style, and doesn’t even cover the basic needs of the fami­lies. In Nora’s opi­nion, more help is pro­bably not impos­si­ble, but she is still thank­ful for, and con­tent with the help they receive, as it is bet­ter than no help at all.  — This is one of the rea­sons why many inha­bi­tants have to work on the fields in the Mar­neuli and Bol­nisi regi­ons (loca­ted in the Kvemo Kartli pro­vince in sou­thern Geor­gia), to make enough money to sustain the pre­vious life­style.

Never­the­l­ess, there are stra­te­gic plans to improve the cur­rent situa­tion, as Marina Tabu­kash­vili says. Since 2012 Taso Foun­da­tion con­ti­nuously works and enthu­si­a­s­ti­cally cor­po­ra­tes with the govern­ment and has recently star­ted a pro­gram for really vul­nera­ble groups among IDP’s. Their task is to pre­pare these groups for suc­cess­ful par­ti­ci­pa­tion in grant com­pe­ti­ti­ons, which gives them bet­ter sub­sis­tence oppor­tu­nities through fur­ther finan­cial help. „700 grants are plan­ned to be issued by the Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­niza­t­ion (auto­no­mous orga­niza­t­ion working with the United Nati­ons) and the Minis­try of Inter­nally Dis­pla­ces Per­sons“, she explains. — There is coope­ra­tion with the govern­ment on dif­fe­rent levels, as well as coope­ra­tion with the par­lia­ment of Geor­gia in crea­ting bet­ter legis­la­tion for phil­an­thropy. — „I think that com­mu­nity phil­an­thropy is the future for this coun­try, and our big wil­ling is to cover the coun­try with it, mea­ning that the money comes from the people or orga­niza­t­i­ons under­stan­ding, that there is no demo­cracy without grass­roots par­ti­ci­pa­tion.“

A grass­roots move­ment is a move­ment, which uses the people in a spe­ci­fic sight, as the basis for politi­cal or eco­no­mic deve­lop­ment. Grass­roots move­ments and orga­niza­t­i­ons use joint actions to achieve a change from local, up to inter­na­tio­nal level. — The main goal of these move­ments is a bot­tom-up, rather than top-down pro­gres­sion, lea­ding to a gro­wing par­ti­ci­pa­tion in politi­cal affairs, espe­cially espe­cially the soci­ally dis­ad­van­ta­ged society.

Hap­pi­ness in Tsint­s­karo

Even though, the women are con­stantly try­ing to improve their lives and the lives of the vil­la­gers, there is still the ques­tion, if they can ever find hap­pi­ness in Tsint­s­karo. „You should pro­bably create hap­pi­ness, whe­re­ver you are. I am thank­ful for what god gave me, so I am not com­plai­ning. If some­thing is mis­sing, we should be satis­fied with what we’ve got from god“, Nora explains. But still she says, that there could be a bet­ter place for her, that there is a bet­ter place, which is obviously her home in the Kodori Val­ley. — Somehow, it feels like the IDP’s don’t allow them­sel­ves to be happy in Tsint­s­karo, because they didn’t just leave their mate­rial belongings behind, but also the hap­pi­ness its­elf.

Neli about a bet­ter life in Abkha­zia

By having shown and still sho­w­ing such an about of will­power and strength while working so hard and deter­mi­ned on all of the pro­blems the vil­la­gers were fac­ing (and are still fac­ing), the IDP-women set an exam­ple, not just for the Tsint­s­karo-resi­dents, but for other vil­la­ges in the area, as well. Infor­ma­ti­ons about what is hap­pe­ning in Tsint­s­karo are sprea­ding far bey­ond the vil­lage boun­dary; in the nearby vil­lage Iraga, IDP people have esta­blis­hed their own self-aid group and Tsint­s­karo is a great exam­ple of how vic­tims of war and dis­pla­ce­ment are not sur­ren­de­ring but rather fight­ing even more of what they need and deserve after having gone through such pain and loss.