“Ma’am, look. I used to have very long hair. Down to here,” - says 10-year-old Sofiko and points to her back. - "But I cut it off."

The word "mother" for four children - 3-year-old Luka, 5-year-old Gabriel, 13-year-old Vazha and 15-year-old Levan – is a taboo!

"Caution! Slow down! Stop! Danger!” Probably it is safer to walk in a minefield than in this house. Having worked for many years at the Fund and having seen the primitive living conditions, we sometimes think that we got already used to such houses. But alas! It is impossible to get used to this.

Have you ever seen the sad eyes of a child? Not, of course! Children's eyes always radiate an endless joy! Children never have problems, but not those who are we going to tell you about, friends!

“We play and run. It helps us to forget that we are hungry,”- little Gvantsa and Saba say. At such a young age, these kids already know what real hunger means.

Six-year-old Oto looks at his holey shoes with annoyance. “Do you want to go to school, dear?" - I try to insinuatingly find out what upsets him so much. "Sure! Everyone goes to school, and I want too! What do you think will my feet get wet?" Dressed literally in rags, the little boy met us by a strange building, which only remotely looked like a house.

Maka, a little beauty asks me naively, and goes on chatting without waiting for my response. “Mommy hugs me at night and wraps me up with the blanket, as I wrap my doll. I feel so good and warm, but mommy is freezing and something hurts her! Can you imagine that, ma’am? When she wakes up in the morning she barely gets up and that’s why she cries a lot. She says it’s impossible to live like that and kisses me many times! And I feel good...”

“Our closest neighbors are the dead people,” says Rusudan Pridonashvili - the Dampalo cemetery has become a shelter and home for her and her three young daughters.

“You know, I almost died, that’s what my mother says! - ten-year-old Mateo complains. - Mommy bought some expensive syrup for me. It was delicious! But the bad thing is that because of me we ate only bread for three days. Maybe she should not have spent so much money on me? What do you think?”