Georgia. A country attracting lots of tourists every year. In its modern capital have been placed automatic food dispensers for stray dogs. In this country, in 2016, 25 women died as a result of domestic violence. 

The scale of the problem of domestic violence in Georgia can be best described by the story of a policeman, who took part in one of the trainings organized by HumanDoc Foundation. After completing the training, he admitted that he realized, he was a perpetrator of domestic violence himself.

For many years now, HumanDoc Foundation has been conducting systemic activities in Georgia, such as domestic violence prevention and strengthening the victim protection system. Since 2018, together with the local organization “Merkuri”, we’ve been helping women and children start a new, safe life, free from violence and aggression.

We are able to do that because we opened the first in western Georgia shelter for women and children, who experienced domestic violence. The shelter is a place, where women and children can survive the crisis, find their balance and strength to prepare for a new life without violence, but with rebuilt self-esteem and financial independence, achieved thanks to the vocational trainings organized by the Foundation.

Help from HumanDoc and its partners is based on a few activities:

– We ensure shelter and a place to live for women and children, who escaped from their homes.

– Our beneficiaries can receive the support of a psychologist, lawyer and social worker. – We also run a support center, where women and children, who faced the problem of domestic violence, but don’t need to live in the shelter, can receive professional advice.  

– Our effective actions are possible thanks to our cooperation with local police, social services and other non-governmental organizations.

Building women’s financial independence 

We help women become financially independent, thanks to which they can leave their husbands or families who use violence. As the first ones in Georgia, we prepared a system of conducting vocational trainings adjusted to the needs of our beneficiaries. Thanks to these courses they can improve their qualifications during e.g. computer and accounting course, massage course, gardening or stylization courses.

Women who completed such courses said multiple times that if it wasn’t for the good atmosphere, flexible schedule (sometimes the classes are conducted on Sundays) and the care provided for their children while they were learning, they never would have dared to take such steps.

We raise women’s self esteem

Throughout the duration of the project, we noticed an urgent need of therapeutic work both with women and the children, for whom we prepared specialized programs of psychological support.

 While going out from the problem of domestic violence, it is vitally important to receive the proper support in making decisions and solidarity, thanks to which women know that they are not abandoned. Bearing that in mind, we have established a Women’s Club – a place, which offers exactly those things. Women can meet there regularly, share their experiences, participate in workshops with a psychologist and other specialists.

Within our project, we cooperate with groups of professions, which are included in the domestic violence prevention system. In the years 2016-2020, we conducted in 4 regions specialized trainings in domestic violence for:

We have trained a group of psychologists, who are now professionally prepared to work with domestic violence victims, as well as a group of trainers, who are now able to conduct their own trainings in domestic violence prevention.

 Trained teachers conducted in their schools various actions for students and their parents aimed at raising awareness of the problem. A few thousand people participated in them. Additionally, our experts, who run programs about domestic violence prevention, appeared regularly in two radio stations.