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IOCC In Georgia Update
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Baby Levan was born on August 13, but he lost his grandfather when he was killed the very next day in Kemerti, South Ossetia. Levan and his parents are staying in Tbilisi in a boarding school for blind children now a center for displaced families. “I want a home – it doesn’t matter where,” says Tamara, his 18-year-old mother who had been working on a degree in Pharmacology and wants to complete it. IOCC has been providing emergency supplies of food, blankets and hygiene kits to thousands of displaced families like Levan’s since the outset of the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia. (photo credit: IOCC Baltimore) |
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“We have a dream to go back – we just hope,” says Nani, a mother of two from Kemerti, South Ossetia now staying near Tbilisi with 15 other families in a building that once served as a summer camp. Winter is coming and the emergency supplies that she received at the outset of the conflict in August are no longer sufficient for the coming winter. IOCC is addressing this need through a $200,000 grant from The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), which will provide winter clothing, bedding, cooking equipment, and stoves for thousands of displaced families in and around Tbilisi. (photo credit: IOCC Baltimore) |
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“We may be blocked from getting to other areas when the winter comes,” said one of the women at a center for displaced families in the mountain town of Tshkvarichamia near Tbilisi. These women had taken three buses to get to Tbilisi to complain to the authorities about their conditions. Toilets are backed up and bedding, delivered back in August, is no longer sufficient for the coming winter. IOCC, which has been providing continuous assistance to displaced families in Georgia, is expanding its relief work to provide supplies that will sustain these families through the coming winter. (photo credit: IOCC Baltimore) |
“If you know anything about our homes, please ask them not to burn them anymore,” pleads one woman from South Ossetia to visiting aid workers. She and others are staying at a kindergarten in Gori, western Georgia. IOCC had provided basic food items to these families including sugar, pasta, flour, and canned goods. Many are hoping that the Georgian government will be able to resettle them to new homes with land for farming. (photo credit: IOCC Baltimore) |
Media and her husband Shota once had apple orchards, livestock and a 2-story house in their village of Pekshvili in South Ossetia. Like many displaced families, there was no time to gather their belongings when fighting broke out between Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian forces in early August. They now occupy a bare classroom with two cots. With everything she has lost, Media grieves most not being able to visit the graves of her parents, now located in an area closed to Georgians. (photo credit: IOCC Baltimore) |
IOCC, founded in 1992 as the official humanitarian aid agency of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), has implemented over $275 million in relief and development programs in 33 countries around the world.
Media: Contact Ms. Amal Morcos at 410-243-9820 or (cell) 443-823-3489.
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