On 16th June, 2025, our founder, Irina von Schlippe, sadly passed away. Some of you will have known Irina, and will have your own memories of her. We would like to share our own tributes, and those of our colleagues in Russia whose charitable work owed much to Irina’s energy, imagination and care.
Can you help us give young people the way into a new profession and eventually to a new life? Any donation, large or small, will help it happen. Mkurnali needs £3,500 to repair the old garage and £600 to teach Pavel to become a professional trainer for 10 apprentices.
Over the years, Mkurnali has provided support to more than 400 young people, guiding them through the arrest and court process. Those who undergo rehabilitation at Mkurnali and benefit from the warmth and dedication of its staff go on to establish a home and a family, find jobs, and integrate into society at large. Remarkably, reoffending hardly occurs among these young people.
However, Mkurnali faces additional challenges, which we discussed with Father George, the founder of Mkurnali, during our trip to Tbilisi with a group of our UK supporters last May. One of these challenges is that ex-offenders and the former homeless find it enormously difficult to get employed.
In Georgia, nepotism is a well-known fact almost nobody denies. Employment is often found not through prevailing in fair, orderly selection processes, but through personal connections. It is evident in almost every Georgian firm and institution. In recent years public awareness and open discussion has happened at a high level (for example in the public sector or political debate) but the public and media are much less attentive. Father George told us that even cleaning jobs cannot be found without personal connections!
This makes Mkurnali’s social enterprises vital for their residents, providing them with new skills and the prospect of eventually opening their own businesses. Among these initiatives is a bicycle and motorbike repair workshop, which can provide training in trades and entrepreneurship for 10 young people.
Apparently, interest in cycling is rising in Georgia, especially in mountain biking, which is widely enjoyed by tourists in Georgia’s hilly and mountainous landscapes. As for the motorbikes, those who have experienced the traffic in Georgia know that motorbikes are very popular in the streets of Tbilisi and they are also widely used for deliveries.
Since our meeting with Father George, we’ve taken the first steps to help Mkurnali.
Thanks to the legacy of the late George Guest, St Gregory’s Foundation has assisted in purchasing a garage which can be transformed to use as the workshop. The garage covers a total area of 38.97 square metres and internally, remains unrenovated; it lacks plastering and a concrete floor.
Repair works and equipping the garage are planned for the coming summer and we are raising funds to help Mkurnali turn the old garage into a working income-generating enterprise. Also part of the plan is to provide training for Pavel, one of Mkurnali’s residents, who previously worked in Mkurnali’s car repair workshop. This training can be organised at one of the repair workshops in Tbilisi under the supervision of an experienced foreman. This training is scheduled for summer 2025. The income generated from the workshop will also be used for further investments in repairs and to increase the number of apprentices.
We also look to acquire used bicycles from the UK and Europe to be donated to Mkurnali – do you know anyone who may be able to help us?
In St Petersburg, we support a Club for pre-school children with impaired hearing and their parents. Timofei is nearly three and has been a member of the Club with his mama for a few months. He is one of several club members who have additional needs as well as being deaf. Fortunately, because the Club is part of the Early Intervention Institute in St Petersburg, his family has been able to access support from an Occupational Therapist, which has very quickly made a huge difference.
Continue reading How Timofei is thriving thanks to our Deaf Club
We are delighted that, with your help, the lead therapist at our Moldovan partner, Rain Kids, has been able to start her studies to develop her skills in working with autistic children. A particular focus of Ana’s traininng has been early intervention with young children aged between 12 and 48 months. We all know how vital these early years are for child development. Providing early support can make a great difference to an autistic child’s communication skills, their behaviour and relationships in the family. Rain Kids are finding that more families are coming to them with their concerns at this early stage, so it is very positive that our colleagues now feel better equipped to help them.
Continue reading Training benefits children straight away
Seraphim and Masha met at their children’s home. They married and Masha got pregnant. Seraphim has been involved with our programme for orphanage-leavers for some time. He brought Masha and their son, Tolya, to the group when Tolya was three months. Seraphim was such a proud dad, always showing photos of his son. He even put up their New Year tree in November, he was so excited. So it was a great shock when Seraphim died later that month.
How Masha and Tolya would be faring now without Sunflower’s support doesn’t bear thinking about. When Masha joined the parenting group she was struggling to bond with her baby. She found physical contact, or even eye contact difficult. Tolya responded by crying when he was touched, which dented her confidence further. She would say, “He doesn’t love me. He won’t look at me.“
In the months before Seraphim’s death, Masha and Tolya had been making great progress. Sunflower used play therapy to encourage more contact between mother and baby. Each week showed Masha how to play simple games which encourage eye contact, physical touching and chatting. Gradually their bond grew with Masha holding Tolya closer and interacting much more. She started to relax, obviously enjoying their growing closeness. Tolya in return became less tense and more interested in the world around him. When he first came to Sunflower he had been stiff, almost like a doll. Now he could hold his head up and look around him. He no longer cried when he was held or touched.
During this time, Masha also built trusting relationships with Sunflower’s team. So after Seraphim’s death, Sunflower have been able to regularly visit her at home to support her through this traumatic time. They are happy that Tolya is receiving the care that he needs, and are committed to working with the family for as long as they are needed.
Thank you to all our donors who help this programme survive. We know there are many more orphanage-leavers out there having to cope with difficult life events without the backup of family or an organisation like Sunflower. Having seen how the right help can transform lives, we are working to reach more of them. This is through Sunflower’s support groups and their training for professionals working with families in crisis in St Petersburg and beyond.
We put families at the heart of all we do, working as a team with parents to improve their children’s life chances. This gives us a fantastic resource, as this example from our Club for hearing impaired toddlers in St Petersburg, Russia shows.
The St Gregory’s winter newsletter is out now with stories from our partners in Russia and Georgia. With Covid cases rising across the region this autumn and winter, you can find out how our colleagues are adapting to continue serving their communities. We have much to learn from their creative problem solving.
We aren’t helping victims, we are helping survivors of childhood trauma. Our colleagues in St Petersburg work to bring out the strengths of the orphanage-leavers they support. With time, many of the young people go on to become mentors, formally and informally supporting other young people. Just watch this video if you doubt how extraordinary these young people can be when they are given the chance.
This Christmas we are all hoping that 2021 will be better than 2020. Our Christmas appeal is aimed at making sure that is true for the most vulnerable as well, and particularly the orphanage-leavers.
It all started when Demetre’s pregnant wife got toothache one evening during the Covid curfew (from 9pm to 6am at the time). They rang the doctor and discovered that she needed a painkiller that they didn’t have at home. Demetre popped out to the pharmacy.
On his way home, Demetre saw police. He hid between two parked cars. The owner was on a nearby balcony, thought Demetre was trying to rob his car and started shouting. Demetre panicked and ran away. The police caught him and tried to arrest him.
Continue reading Pandemic leads to arrest of innocent man
Usually, with our help, the Orthodox parish in Kondopoga, Karelia provides lunch and a range of activities to deprived local children – all based at their welcoming hub at Parish House. This year, group activities weren’t possible, but with unemployment rising the parish knew that the need was greater than ever.
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