Georgia Radio Show Aids Stricken Family

A poverty-stricken family from western Georgia featured in an IWPR radio show produced and aired as part of IWPR’s refugees retraining and employment initiative has received official pledges of assistance and private donations.

The appalling conditions endured by the Shonia family – who were forced to flee their home in Abkhazia’s Gali district during Georgia’s failed attempt to subdue separatist forces in the early 1990s – were exposed in an episode of IWPR’s Refugees’ News, broadcast by the Odishi radio station in late in June.

The radio programme, broadcast twice a month, is produced by refugees who’ve been trained as journalists by IWPR staff to report on issues and problems affecting their communities.

“I am happy that our report has received such a broad response. This is a great stimulus for the show and the journalists taking part in it,” said Tamuna Shonia, coordinator of the refugees retraining and employment programme in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region.

The programme described how the family of seven – two parents and five children – lived in a one-room shack with half-rotten floor boards, a sieve of a roof, and survived on scraps of food.

“The head of the family, Velodi Shonia, told me the children mainly subsisted on boiled grass and whatever food they were given by their neighbours,” said the journalist who produced the report, Jilda Kardava.

“The plight of the Shonia family’s five children is made all the more difficult to endure by the fact that their mother has psychiatric problems, and, as their father said, she even threatens to kill them sometimes.”

Velodi Shonia told the programme that he and his wife have health problems and were unable to work, but claimed his repeated attempts to get help from the ministry of refugees and settlement had gone unheeded.

The sad fate of the family prompted a local official and a rights protection organisation to try to improve their miserable conditions, while a businessman and an number of journalists have provided direct material assistance.

“Listening to this report, I felt my heart burn with pity for the Shonia family,” said Madona Jabua, who is head of the department for culture and youth affairs in western Zugdidi district. “It’s terrible that someone should live a life like that in the 21st century. I will do everything in my power to ensure that at least the basic needs of these children are met.

“Social security services should help the family, to see that the children become integrated into the society.”

“It’s absolutely unacceptable to let the Shonias continue living like this. We are grateful to IWPR for giving us the information.”

Rusudan Pachkoria of the Legal Protection Institute told IWPR he had written to the ministry for refugees and settlement urging them to assist the family. “I am now waiting for them to reply, and I promise I’ll bring the matter to a close,” he said.

Meanwhile, the family has received some financial assistance from a local businessman who was moved by their story.

“The report made my heart ache for them. Mine is not a big business, nevertheless I gave a certain sum to the family – not much, but enough to keep them fed for a while. I hope I am not the only one to have felt the urge to help them,” said Emzar Kvaratskhelia.

Local journalists and some based in the capital also sent the family what they could, including food, clothes and school textbooks. Nika Chkhartishvili, one of the founders of the news agency Expressnews, said, “This is not much, but if other people decide to contribute, we will succeed in making life a little bit easier for the family.”

Kardava said she was happy her story had been so impactful, “Now I can say I have done something good in my life,” she said.

“I cannot thank IWPR enough,” said Velodi Shonia. “It is owing to your broadcast that today my children have clothes to wear and hot soup to eat. So many people responded to our plight when I’d already lost all hope for a better future.”