From "Progress" to Progress
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Photo: UN Women/Gvantsa Asatiani
Her phone is ringing…it’s probably home. It’s her daughter, Maka: she says that “Tetra” is acting up - she’s on a bad mood and doesn’t milk. It seems she won’t let anyone else other than Maia approach. Buffalos have such a habit: they will only the one person that takes care of them milk them…how do they know? By smell…That’s another of Maia’s passions: family, animals, chicken, a vegetable and fruit garden, dinner and…in short, there’s always something to do… Maia Pipia is 50 years old, she is a biologist and lives in Anaklia… It has been three years already since her lifestyle changed. It all started from her hosting members of the TASO fundation. One time she overheard that in cooperation the UN Women they were helping women living in the neighboring Koki and Orsanta to implement projects on community mobilization.
Maya liked the idea and became interested whether it was possible or not to gather volunteers in Anaklia. She knew that there were women in her village who also wanted to do good for the community, so the initiative would work well in Anaklia as well. She was told it all depended on how active they would be. Since the project implied the involvement of ID women, she first called Nino, an IDP friend from Abkhasia and shared the idea with her.
“Nino is a physics and mathematics teacher… a very active woman. I let her read the regulations TASO employees had left and she liked it very much. We understood that it was not at all hard to do this. We shared out initiative with other female IDP living nearby. Finally we gathered six volunteers in group and called it Progress”, – Maia recalls. They acted in accordance with the regulations: they created a cashier and gathered the first small fund as well. However, all of a sudden it turned out that the means of implementing their ideas were quite vague despite their enthusiasm. None of them had imagined what exactly they should do. They only knew that they had to study the needs of the village and write an appropriate project for it.
Team members would gather at Maia’s house and kept discussing one and the same idea for some reason: “We were going to plant hybrid corn; nothing else was coming to mind. It’s funny now that we think about it”, - Maia says. Soon the director of the TASO foundation Marina Tabukashvili visited them. She was told that they would definitely participate in the project and change the life of women in Anaklia at least a little bit. They started and progressive ambitions appeared: they didn’t like meeting at Maia’s house anymore, they needed a room to make plans and they soon found it: a 9 square meter space at the local government without a ceiling or a floor and walls barely standing… they were still happy: they fixed everything on their own and told the curious women of Anaklia about the project, volunteering, community mobilization and activism: “Everyone wanted to know what was going on in that room. I used to teach biology in Zugdidi, but then I got married and plus there was the horror of the 90’s… in short I spent 20 years at home and only took care of family matters. I had to go through some hard times after my husband passed away, I had to think and take care of everything on my own and my everyday life was entirely about my family. Everyone was surprised when I went out to work all of a sudden. Everyone wanted to know what was this thing that I found time for”, - Maia recalls.
Once they found out about the project other women also wanted to volunteer. Another self-help group was arranged along with Progress and there was a grant competition announced. They bought two computers with their first grant and opened a computer center in Anaklia. Informatics teacher Nino had to teach computer programs to the locals on shattered tables fixed with nails. The center became so popular that they couldn’t accept everyone who wanted to study. Those who got lucky were given certificates 6 months later. Many of them are employed today: as a manager of a nursery, a specialist at a local government, bank branches and hotels… Soon they started off another project on community mobilization. They bought drawers and tables; they held trainings for activists, the number of which kept increasing every day. Women of Anaklia applied to Maia with the desire to engage in the project. After the second self-help group there was a third one, after the third one – there was a fourth group, after the fourth – the fifth. There was so many of them they could start thinking about creating a foundation. “Nepa” fund with Maia Pipia as its director was born on June 12, 2012. As soon as it was founded, “Nepa” started to implement a project on social equality in Anaklia and Kakhati. They first researched the needs of the village: it appeared that the inexistence of a school bus was what worried the locals most. Children had to walk 5 kilometers through rain, wind and snow. “Nepa” activities soon bared its results: today there’s a bus serving the kids and even the roads are graveled. They didn’t leave kindergarten kids without attention either: they bought furniture with grant money and gifted it to them. Women of the foundation didn’t limit their activities to that: they planted organic farming, implemented the project on farming ecologically clean products and employed the villagers. Then they held a two-day festival of documentaries in Anaklia with the support from one of the Czech organizations and showed films about women’s migration and violence issues. They simultaneously held trainings for volunteers about writing projects and shared their experience with them. “Nepa” itself gave out three grants, within the frames of which there was a medical center set up in Anaklia, a library, parent’s and debate clubs were established. Now they’re expecting results of another competition. Applications have been filed, but they don’t know which one will be financed yet: the house of art where they will teach bead embroidery, sewing and the making of souvenirs and handmade items, the culinary courses project or the leadership school. Simultaneously, with the support from the UN, they’re working on filming a documentary about the history of Anaklia and are preparing to hold a festival for the second time.
Maia says that all projects were fruitful. A brick on a brick and the wall was built. “Of course it’s not easy to arrange small budget projects, but we always tried to spend every Tetri appropriately. This played an important role in our success. We also closely collaborated with the local government. We’re entirely engaged in the community life”, - she notes. Maia’s morning starts at 7 o’clock… First of all she prepares breakfast for a student Maka, she then does farming: she has to take care of three cows and a buffalo. In the meantime the lodgers leave for work and she has to clean the first floor. She has it all calculated: it takes 2 hours and 20 minutes. She then has to go through the second floor: she cleans and prepares dinner at the same time. She goes to the office at half past one and comes back at 7. Then there’s cows and chicken again… This happens every day, including the weekends… Sometimes her everyday work includes the fruit and vegetable garden, harvesting and carrying firewood. “I have to take care of all of this, but I cannot live without the foundation. I was boiling tomatoes in the wicker house yesterday, I was very tired, but when Nino called me and told me – the women are here, they’re working on projects, could you please come over so that we give them advice, I went immediately… It seemed like I never had time for anything else other than domestic issues, but when you want to do something, you can always combine things. Despite the fact that I support the family and I only had a salary of 72 GEL in the last project, money really isn’t the most important thing. I just enjoy it, because I know, I’m doing something useful”, - Maia says.
Despite being actively engaged in the project, she also takes in the functions of an accountant of the foundation. She learned everything from scratch, but now she says she can distribute every tetri. Maia’s life has taken up an entirely different rhythm. And thanks to her there are many other women in Anaklia who have switched to that pace.
“The office is always full of people, no matter what time you come around. We took in many people as members and even more want to join. This project got these women out their houses. It was not all that easy from the beginning though. On the contrary… people were skeptical about us; many of them didn’t believe that we could actually do something. They didn’t understand why we would add the community issues to our bothers. Now I find it amusing, because they have changed their attitude. We live as a single big family. Sometimes Maka comes to visit as well. Now we are planning to create youth groups and she might engage in that process. My older daughter Eka was also a volunteer and now she works as an assistant at the TASO foundation. We want to do more. We’ll see, the country isn’t built in a day”, - Maia says. Maia will attend the next training in order to be able to do more… and “Tetra” will have to be sad again…