Eka, short for Ekatarine, has been through more trauma in her eleven years than most people would have to endure in ten lifetimes. Looking at her rosy cheeks and shy smile, you would not imagine a childhood filled with conflict, violence and an absence of good memories. Her wheelchair distinguishes her from the other children in the ‘First Step’ cottage, but also the fact that her eyes reflect a resilience and acceptance way beyond her age.

At the age of five, Eka was cast off to the notorious Kaspi orphanage, 65 km from the capital Tbilisi, after she witnessed her father kill her mother in the family’s small home. Her father was sent to prison with a 15-year jail term and Eka’s relatives considered it best that she be raised in a children’s institution.

In Kaspi, her already poor health deteriorated further as the environment and conditions failed to meet the physical and emotional needs that stem from Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), Cerebral Palsy and Scoliosis. Soon after her arrival, she suffered from malnourishment, poor hygiene and an associated disease of the nails and cuticles, which eats away the skin and causes unbearable itchiness.

One year later and already severely weakened, she hung between life and death when an abnormal amount of cerebrospinal fluid caused the ventricles in her brain to enlarge and increase the pressure inside her head. She was taken to the Tbilisi State hospital where doctors inserted a surgical shunt, or tube, near her brain to divert the flow of fluid and absorb it elsewhere in the body.

After the operation she was sent back to Kaspi and soon after her return, broke her right arm. Amazingly, no one could report on why or how it happened. She was returned to the hospital but doctors could not operate because Eka’s body could not cope with another full anesthetic or painkillers. She was sent back to Kaspi with a broken arm and no effective drugs to dull the pain.

Every year in Kaspi, children die of preventable diseases and malnourishment. In 1999, The First Step, a local Non-Governmental Organisation went on a life-saving mission to Kaspi to relocate the most vulnerable children. With funding from World Vision, twenty-four children were moved to the Gumurashvili medical clinic in Tbilisi to receive immediate treatment and rehabilitation. Eka was one of them. There, nurses discovered that she had terrible bedsores, so much so that parts of her body were unrecognizable.

Today, nearly four years later, she is one of twelve healthy children living in the World Vision funded ‘First Step’ home for children with disabilities. The ‘cottage’ is not designed to be another attractive layer of institutionalisation, but rather a place of transition where children are prepared to return to their birth families, where viable, or to live with foster families.

The focus is on individual development, especially independence training, such as eating and dressing unassisted and reading and writing, which is vital for both children and families, as most cases of abandonment occurred when parents were unable to cope and had no access to community-based support services.

Eka is softly spoken but her speech is excellent and she loves to talk and sing. After she treated us to a duet with her friend Giorgi, I felt compelled to ask the ‘First Step’ Administrator, Nino Museliani, how can a child, who has suffered so much, feel and express this kind of warmth? She replied, “we have helped her to be happy, but that happiness and goodness is inside of her, in her personality”. However, Eka is one of the exceptions. Many institutionalised children are severely affected by their environment and experiences and often become introverted, detached and unable to interact with others.

Whilst Eka prepares to live in a foster family, society must also be prepared to receive, love and relate with these children, be it in the form of reaching out through fostering or being active in including them in schools and social groups. This is why World Vision and partners including UNICEF and EveryChild are working alongside the Georgian ministries to create community-based services, such as a mother and infant shelter, day care and teen centers, inclusive kindergartens and employment counseling centers. The results will be fewer cases of child abandonment, the closure of many children’s institutions and the remaining few will be made more developmentally stimulating.

The U.N Convention on the Right’s of the Child states in its preamble; “the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding”. There are hundreds of children like Eka who are growing up in unloving, hostile and isolated institutions in Georgia, but let us not get caught up in the vastness of numbers, for every one is known to God by name.

World Vision and its partners are striving to make society a steward of these children by ensuring that they are not separated from their families in the first place and by providing the support every family needs. The task ahead is by no means insurmountable and together we can make a difference in the life of every child, one by one….

Photo: Rebecca Lyman