AFG: Projects: Children: Disabled
NGO Napertskala
Personal Observations from the Executive Director: Dalisa Kukuladze taught at the Gldani Orphanage for disabled children for 35 years during Soviet times. Upon her retirement in 1990, she set up a weekend art school in her home for the mentally disabled orphans she had left behind. Napertskala (Spark) provides a warm, caring, homelike atmosphere for the children. Last year the Swiss organization GIP-Tbilisi (Geneva Initiative in Psychiatry) purchased an apartment for the school. Dalisa and her enthusiastic volunteers have helped socialize the children, teach them hygienic skills as well as music, painting and crafts. The children make their own puppets and perform charming shows filled with humor, singing and a great deal of talent, all of which helps raise the children’s self-esteem. The children are so eager to come to Napertskala on weekends that they navigate Tbilisi’s public transportation on their own to get there. They have exhibited their crafts for sale to support the school and have sung concerts and performed their puppet plays for the public.
With very little money, Dalisa and her staff are trying to show their fellow Georgians that these children are educable. She wants them to be given the chance to earn a living and not end up, as so many did before them, as beggars or prostitutes.
AFG Accomplishments: AFG and the Swiss organization GIP-Tbilisi are the only two organizations assisting Napertskala. AFG has:
- Provided funds for 15 mentally handicapped orphans to spend three great weeks in the country, away from their institutions, making art and enjoying the outdoors
- Purchased supplies for the children to create art work to be sold at a conference on disabled children in France in October 2005
- Shipped clothing, art and school supplies in AFG’s container in 2003
Current Needs: Unfortunately, AFG has only recently been able to send a grant to help Napertskala due to our many projects. They need:
- Funding for the renovation of the apartment which is their school
- Funding to purchase a refrigerator, stove, washing machine, water heater and furnishings
- Funds for transportation for the children
- Funds for teacher salaries
- Funds to purchase materials for their handicrafts which they sell to help them become self-sustaining