"When I'm not at home and I hear the ambulance sirens, I always think they're going to my mom, and that I won't have time to run home and find her alive." 

     These are the words of 11-year-old Ramaz, and what a horror it is to realize that he is always afraid to lose his mother and remain an orphan. He has nobody but his mother.

     Many thousands of women in Georgia raise children alone. But not all of them have the strength to survive! 

     Maya Kanashvili was not going to be a single mother. She wanted to create a happy family and enjoy life with a child and a loving husband! But a tragic case ruined all her intentions. Today this 46-year-old woman and her 11-year-old son are disabled people of group II. They live in a dilapidated hut, in appalling conditions, half-starving, without any hope for survival and on the threshold of a terrible despair. 

    For 11 years now, the mother and her son have been wandering around the barracks, content with scant food, wearing discarded old clothes, suffocating from asthma attacks, and the worst thing is that they have developed a fear of life. It seems to them that "tomorrow" may never come!   

   It happened so that ambulance comes two or even three times a day to them. Maya suffocates with lack of air; she rushes around the small room, beating her head against the wall; she runs out into the yard and falls onto the ground. Little Ramaz is watching all that, and his fear also triggered asthma attacks. The child cries and clings to the exhausted body of the mother... and in this state they are waiting for the arrival of the ambulance. Thanks God, this service is free in our country. 

     We talked to Maya and asked her to tell us about her hard life, physical and mental anguish, about those moments that turned the life of this family into a difficult test: 

   – Maya, what is your current health condition? 

   Maya: By fits and starts. With God's help we still manage to survive. But what will happen tomorrow, I do not know... I am worried about diabetes and chronic asthma, and on the background of these diseases, heart failure has developed. My son is also a disabled person of group II, again the same damn asthma... Thanks God, he doesn't have severe seizures like me. But if this continues, his health will be quite sad. 

    – Probably because of such existence your health is in such a terrible state?

       Maya: Yes, I got diabetes because of my numerous concerns; the nervous system could not resist it any more. I probably got asthma already in this closet. There's nothing to breathe in here. But the worst thing is different... My boy, he's so small. I wish no child to look at his or her mother choking and lying on the floor. It is not a picture for the faint-hearted... Every morning, going to school, he hugs me and asks: "Mom, please do not die, be alive when I return".

     – That's your biggest heartache, isn't it? 

      Maya: Every day I think more and more: if I die, what will happen to my child? No one in the world needs him but me. Who will embrace him, who will give him any compassion?!!

    - Maya, tell us about yourself. 

     Maya: I lived in a civil marriage with my husband. But when he found out I was pregnant, he kicked me out of the house and I haven't seen him since. My mother didn't take me back. I still can't understand why my relatives refused me. I tried to get in touch with them, but they don't want to. If my father were alive, my life wouldn't be so sad.…

   – So where did you go after your husband kicked you out?

  Maya: I started renting a room. Got a job as a cleaner in a store. Unfortunately, I don't have any profession. After Ramaz was born, I had to quit my job. When I couldn't pay my rent, they threw me and my baby out. We slept at the station, on a park bench or in some entryway…

   – How did you survive?

   Maya: Apparently the Guardian Angel is protecting us, or I can't explain it.

    – And what's this little room you live in? 

   Maya: A few years ago, I came to my friends and asked them to move me here. They agreed. Here, of course, the conditions are terrible, but it's better than spending a night in the street. Yes, the toilet and the water is in the yard; the roof is leaking; there is mold on the walls; but we could have been even without this. 

   – And have you asked for the help from the mayor? 

  Maya: It has been 6 years since I started applying to the administration of Mtatsmindskyi district of Tbilisi in the hope of getting a room in a public house. Every year I write a request and wait for my turn, but to no avail. The city hall gives me money twice a year to buy medicines. Previously it was 150 lari, now the amount was reduced to 100 lari. It is so little! For example, first of all I need salbutamol, which costs 10 lari and suffices for three days. The same with the other drugs.…

    – Where do you take money for living? 

    Maya: It is a pension and a tiny social allowance. All the money is spent on medicines and bread, and I also pay 50 lari per month for electricity. It is necessary to switch on the electric stove to heat the room so that the child does not freeze: he gets ill often. Recently there was such a case. I was doing Laundry in the yard, and the child was sleeping on the bed, covered with a blanket. At some point, the blanket slipped and covered the stove. I suddenly saw black smoke coming from the cracks in my closet. It was a miracle that we saved everything…

   – Maya, everyone has a secret dream. Can you share your dream? 

  Maya: I dream of waking up one day with the idea that my child is healthy, that the disease is no longer there and that I can breathe a sigh of relief... Oh, there is a panduri hanging on the wall (note: Georgian national instrument), this is a toy model, I found it in a landfill... I dream of having a real panduri, it reminds me of my childhood, when I attended the school music club. When it will be very, very hard, I will play and sing to relieve my feelings, not to fall into despair, because the son is growing up and it is necessary to take care of him..."

   – Ramaz, what do you dream about? 

   Ramaz (11 years old): I dream of a house, a beautiful garden and a dog... I dream that many children come to visit us... I still dream of warm clothes, as my legs are always cold. But most of all I would like my mom not to choke and that the ambulance never come to our place. I am afraid of that noise! When I come back from school and hear this nasty sound in the yard I think that my mother is bad and I start crying…

    – In what grade do you study, and how do you do at school?

   Ramaz: I'm in the sixth grade. My school is not far from my house. I like going to school. But when it's very cold outside, I miss classes. I don't have any warm clothes, and I start coughing. So my mother won't let me go. She says: "Sit by the stove and learn your lessons at home." 

    – Who buys clothes for you anyway?

     Ramaz: Mom finds them at the dump... Sometimes the neighbors give them to us…

     – What subject is your favorite? 

    Ramaz: I like all subjects, but most of all I like Computer Studies. I even attend the computer club. There is a computer at school, and I'm good at it. I want to become a programmer to earn money and help my mother. Oh, I've recalled... I still dream of a laptop... 

        Dear friends, we have told you a lot of heartbreaking stories, but the situation in which these unfortunate mother and son are living cannot be compared to anything! 

        A year and a half ago our Fund helped the family with the help of good people. We bought them a bed, where the mother and her son sleep now, a bedside table, food and medicines. It helped them through the hard times, and now they need us again! 

        With God's help the family has survived this winter. Luckily it was not very cold, and somehow they lived in this unheated tiny room.

       We know that you, our dearest benefactors, are ready to save these people and take them out of the abyss of poverty. 

          Dear friends, Maya Kanashvili and her little son are in extreme need for medicines, food, bed linen, children's clothes, a fridge and other household things. 

     You can transfer money to help him our Fund account GE15TB7194336080100003 or GE64BG0000000470458000 (Purpose: Kanashvili Family). You can also transfer money from our website. 

    You can as well transfer money from the terminals of Nova Technology, TBCpay and ExpressPay. Find our Fund in "Charity" section. (You can learn about the ways of payment by following the link https://goo.gl/GY2Gus). 

   Sympathy and help is the supreme form of love. Everything you do returns to you a million times more, but it is not the most important thing. The most important is that you save a person's life!