The six-member Khavlashvili family lived in the same two-storey, white house for the last 30 years in their native village that lies in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. They have one picture left of the house as it used to be, and from the wrap-around balcony you can see the smiling faces of t...

“I didn’t have time for school because I had to support my family”, says 12-year-old Giorgi, who spent most of his time on the street begging and sometimes earning a meager amount of money by carrying goods for people in the street.

Three months ago Giorgi’s life was totally differen...

Single mother Marina Gabrichidze, 42, was determined to give her young daughter Tamuna a safe and secure upbringing in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, despite being abandoned by her husband when Tamuna was just three years old. Small loans provided by World Vision’s microfinance institution in Georgia, C...

Irakli, affectionately known as Bombora, has spent seven out of his nine years living in a children’s institution where he isolated himself from others and avoided contact with everybody, except his mother, who could only visit him once a week.

Today Bombora is surrounded by people wh...

SUKHUMI – People in Abkhazia are stuck in a nebulous zone. They are not part of Russia, though some hold Russian passports; they are not part of Georgia, though some are ethnically Georgian; and now they are independent, but only recognised by Russia. Abkhazia’s future is uncertain and could remain ...

Thirty-six-year-old Nona and her three children have called World Vision’s ‘Emergency Shelter for internally displaced mothers and infants’ home since fleeing their village Zemo Nikozi in the breakaway region of South Ossetia when conflict erupted in August 2008.

Seventy-four children from all eight districts of Abkhazia, representing the various ethnicities in the de facto republic, gathered in Sukhumi, the capital city, to perform a concert showing some cultural aspects of the countries they had been studying all summer through a World Vision project. Earl...

For one-month-old, Isabella, the Infant House Transformation (IHT) centre is the only home she knows. In three months, however, everything might change, and Isabella and her mother, Natia, may not have a place to live.

Baby Izabela should still be safely tucked inside her mother’s nurturing womb, but the terrifying sound of bombing in the Georgian town of Gori brought on early labour and a chain of events that no mother or newborn should have to endure.

Gripped with pain and unable to receive any as...

“We don’t know if their mother is alive or not”, says Leila solemnly. The aunt of Temur, 12, and Zaza, 5, tries to remain ‘upbeat’ with her nephews, but as each day goes by, she fears more and more for the well-being of their mother. The boys' father drowned four years ago and their mother became th...

Once a bustling hive of activity and children’s laughter, the former kindergarten which shelters 220 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi is eerily quiet. The 44 children who live in the centre spend most of their waking hours huddled next to their parents, as if afraid t...

“They were shooting and airplanes were flying, then my father had to go to work and we were hiding in a basement.” This is how 10-year-old Mariam describes the conflict that recently erupted in South Ossetia.

TBIILSI – “When the war started I decided not to leave my house and we were hiding in the basement, but soon bombs began to drop in our village. I was afraid for the life of my children, not for me. We walked to the road, then a car gave us a ride to Gori. I thought I would stay with my relatives th...

“I dream of the day when I don’t have to worry how I will feed my six children”, says 41-year-old Marina who laments that no one in her eight-member family has a job.

Marina, husband Badri, and their children live in a suburb of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in a two room flat with...

“The last year of my life was like a hell for me, I still cannot believe it was reality!” begins 32-year-old Mary from Tbilisi in Georgia. The nightmare started three years ago, with one tragedy followed by another. Left alone with three children and no income, she decided to seek work abroad.
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