Mamatsi Guli

Mamatsi Guli is a charity based in Georgia. We gave them some funds towards their eco village project in Spring 2008 and in June 2009 Madge Bray gave us this update on their work over the past year.

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1. The toilets were duly installed. Please see after and before sample pics below!

2.Since that time various guest visitors and volunteers were hosted in the village. This included a group of people who came to learn Georgian healing songs and sang with village singers , university lecturers who came to support good child care practice in Georgia, and went home and wrote a paper on what they saw,  a film maker, a French based theatre mask maker,  and young volunteers “with fewer opportunities” who came under an EU scheme.

3.As a direct result of that, Georgians were invited to the UK, and a very succesful “Cradleful Of Harmonies” UK  fundraising tour  was accomplished in March and April,  which  gave the Georgians an opportunity to raise money for themselves in a sustainible way rather then be charity cases.( All money raised eventually went back to fund a school for social orphan kids at Temi  community.) As a result a young Georgian  ex social orphan girl,  now at University, has been invited to volunteer at a Rudolf Steiner Community  for learning disabled people here in the UK to learn and transfer knowledge.

4. Then in August 2008, came the war in Georgia. The village filled up with refugees from Gori. I had to flee the war  via Armenia, and had no idea if this would be the end of our work.

5. In November 2008, the lady  of the Lush” toilet house” got cancer.  She is 38 and mother of 2 young boys. There’s no state medical care and a life saving operation was out of the question. People live from hand to mouth. Some of the British volunteers decided to donate money for her operation and chemotherapy. She had breast, lymph and womb removed. (Thank You,  Lush,  for inside clean toilets and shower!)  Women  in crisis need these things! )

We want to use her home for more visitors in due course, but must wait till she is well.

6.  We are now looking to raise funds in her village, our original site, for an environmental  campaign, because an old lady Nana Nemsazde, our executive Director and veteran  green campaigner, is based there and working with villagers on sustainability. This campaign  will  begin with fundraising for  a donkey and cart, which will collect the village rubbish, currently  just dumped in the river,  and transport it to a central point. If she can get this achieved, then the local authority have agreed to remove it.  When people are just surviving, unfortunately,  nobody thinks about environmental awareness.

6. In the meantime,  our work has expanded, and members of our Georgian Mamatsi Guli charity are working across two more sites. Gia Razmadze  and his family,  and Irina Nonikashvili  have moved to another Kakhetian village,  Gremi, and  are setting up a school at  Temi  alternative orphanage there.  This is for socially vulnerable young adults and children who are in need of care and who live in Community  There are big new environmentally friendly initiatives happening  at Temi and they are planting a Kiwi  Fruit Plantation.  They have animals and their own organic  vineyards. Now, with Gias  presence, Temi has become a singing orphanage, where traditional harmony songs are sung by the kids see  www.Temi -community.org  ( their website is  a couple of years old now, and needs updating). Temi also fosters children. So assisting Temi to develop, has become a focus. During the war Temi took in a number of new  people with severe learning difficulties, whose state institution was  overrun by the Russians.

7. Living in  Temi community is a little boy of 8 years  old, in a wheelchair called Datuna,  who was used for begging on the streets of Tbilisi. He  has had no spinal injury treatment since he sustained a broken back when he was 2 years old.  He will die unless he receives an operation, unavailible in his own country. Our charity is bringing him here in September for tests and a brace .  An Edinburgh surgeon has agreed to operate when the time comes  free of charge.  An Edinburgh physio will care for him. We are fundraising for him. If you look on the Temi  website ,he’s the little boy holding the puppies. A  British Doccumentary film crew are following this story. Finally after nearly a year of battling, we found his mother and yesterday he got his passport. There is no functioning child protection legislation in Georgia .

8. A social priority primary  school here outside Glasgow, Thornlie School, in Wishaw,  has been twinned with the new Temi school  run by Gia  Razmadze. Four years ago according to the Sunday Times it was one of the worst Schools in Scotland for attainment and exclusion rates. It has just won an educational award for its childrens  groundbreaking work as social entrepreneurs, setting up a Georgia /Scottish Friendship Day,and  raising money for a ramp for Datuna so that he can have some independence. These children  have also been taught Georgian songs and dances by Nana Mzhavanadze,who is now heading up our charity, and this has spawned a new” Harmony Initiative” across the school. The headmaster will visit Temi this year, with a view to some of  his children going next year.

9. Nana Mzhavanadze is an exceptional singer,  from a long line of Traditional Village  Songmasters , and trained at the Tbilisi Music Conservatory. She has been instrumental in teaching her countrys music,in particular, the ancient healing songs, or “Songs to the Spirits. Nana Mzhavanadze has now become Head of the Charity .

She  is based in  the capital Tbilisi, our third site,but keeps in touch with her colleagues  . She will be coming across here to develop an authentic teaching CD of the songs so that they can be used in Healing here in the West. Typically, in Georgian healing rituals, violets and roses are given up as offerings by the women. We plan again,soon, to bring groups of people to Georgia to learn from village singers ,and we will host them in the village. Without basic toilet and shower facilities for them, this would not have been possible. (Part of our charity aim is to develop links between our two countries.)

10. As I write, two young British  volunteers, themselves vulnerable youngsters are , with a mentor, volunteering at Temi, under an EU scheme. This is life changing for them because it puts their own life challenges into perspective. Under the scheme,  they are permitted to visit once beforehand, to see whether they can manage it . On her first visit, one of them loved it so  much , she stayed up all night, in case she missed something!

11. And , as I write, I have just received a request from a young Georgian boy who has grown up in London. He has apparently read about our work, on the internet,  and wants to go out and volunteer. We have developed the mechanism here , to make that possible, through Ecologia Youth Trust. They are our sister charity in the UK and are experienced at working with young people who want to volunteer. I am absolutely delighted, because its young people like him who can really make a difference , and he speaks the language.
This young man has a girlfriend , who wants to volunteer  too. Guess where she heard about our  Mamatsi Guli charity?  On Lush website! Isnt it a small world…?

So there you have it!  I think its big progress in a very short time on a shoestring, as we’re all volunteering our time, except Nana Mzhavanadze who is paid a small local salary.

I hope you can see how much your contribution has helped us get to the next stage.

Toilets before

Toilets after

Mamatsi Guli visit our Scottish stores

Mamatsi Guli visited out Scottish stores during the summer 2009 to thank our staff and customers for their support through Charity Pot, by singing beautiful Georgian healing songs. Here are some reports from the staff.

Louise and the team at Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

It was a lovely way to say ‘thank you’ and it created a beautiful atmosphere. Our customers really enjoyed the performance which was great for helping to spread the word about the charity and the charity pot. The performers were extremely grateful for the donation they had received from Lush and they took the time to thank us individually.

A really beautiful and soothing performance, and a wonderful insight into a different culture. Made me realise how important the charity pot donations are (if we had not given them money, who would have?) and how gratefully they are received.

I found the whole experience very moving. I really didn’t know what to expect but from the minute the singers started I could feel the hairs going up on the back of my neck and a lump in my throat. I truly believe the singing was good for the soul – we had customers welling up, babies falling alsleep and people who had just popped in on their lunch breaks staying for the whole performance because they found it so soothing, they really didn’t want to go back to their desks!!

The performers were so grateful for the money they had received and were keen to show us the difference the donation from Lush had made to what they do.

Roisin and the team at Breahead, Glasgow

It was such a lovely day, her singing was superb, and she showed us pictures of how the money from charity pot have helped them! The differences in the toliets was unreal, it makes you feel really proud to know that you are helping someone!

Singers from Mamatsi Guli

Roisin, the three singers, Sheree, Claire and Morven at Braehead