The First Step charity established by Wexford woman Jane Corboy is making a real difference in the eastern European state of Georgia, writes Joe Humphreys.
It is 10 years since Jane Corboy first visited the Kaspi orphanage in the former Soviet state of Georgia. But the memories are still fresh. "The kids had been left alone in a series of rooms," she recalls. "There was no interaction, and no attempt at interaction. Everything had broken down." Just weeks beforehand, 24 children had died at the institution, through malnutrition and neglect in what were then dire economic times. "The caregivers at Kaspi were hungry themselves, and their own children were hungry because their salaries weren't being paid.
"I came home and I went into a kind of trance. I wasn't sleeping, and my husband came home, having seen me go through this thing, and said, 'What are you waiting for? You've loads of energy. Get up and do something.' "
So began The First Step - one of the first non-governmental organisations established in Georgia - and now a leading provider of services for people with intellectual disabilities in the eastern European state. Corboy, from Co Wexford, arrived in the country with her husband, Denis Corboy, the first EU Ambassador to Georgia, in November 1994 and founded the charity with Nino Kidigidze Zhvania, the wife of the current prime minister of Georgia. The women had together taken that fateful first trip to Kaspi in March 1995, and became close friends.
Their journey came full circle recently when they were reunited in Dublin for a visit of Georgian government ministers and officials to Ireland. The top-level delegation travelled to St Michael's House, which provides services for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, to see whether similar programmes could be established in Georgia.
That such a trip took place at all illustrates how much things have changed in Georgia since Corboy arrived there in 1994. She notes the country was just emerging from a civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "There was no gas, no heating, no electricity. The level of deprivation and poverty and hopelessness is something that will stick with me until I die."
People with intellectual disabilities had suffered more than most under the Soviet regime. "It was no accident that institutions like Kaspi were buried deep in the countryside. Children with disabilities were seen as a blemish," she recalls.
Zhvania adds: "The Soviets were building "a healthy society", and they were hiding disabled children away from the conscience of the people."
The pair's first attempt to improve services for people with disabilities - a staff retraining programme at Kaspi - proved unsuccessful. Such institutions were difficult to reform. So, instead, Corboy and Zhvania set up a new community-based treatment programme in line with the best international model. Pointedly, says Zhvania, "we decided to build it in the capital to bring the children closer to society." The service contained specialists in occupational therapy and social work - professions that were "totally new for Georgia", she adds.
The charity's first residential "cottage" opened in 2002 with 12 children. Two more cottages have since been built, along with the first ever day-care centre in Georgia for profoundly disabled children. The First Step now has more than 100 children with intellectual disabilities in schools or day care. The charity has also successfully re-united some of the children from Kaspi with their parents, thereby reducing the number of residents at the orphanage to just 45. "The ultimate aim is to get all the kids out and find a proper solution for them all," says Corboy.
The Irishwoman, who before her marriage in 1993 worked in event management and various other jobs in the bloodstock and drinks industries in Dublin, said things had further improved in Georgia with the 2003 "Rose Revolution", and the election of a new Western-friendly administration. "All the young, reforming politicians are in government now; all our friends, really," she remarked. Yet finance remains a problem. "There have been times we have had children dying and we have had no money to bring them into hospitals and do emergency care on them."
The charity, which has been rebranded in Ireland as The Next Step, is run entirely by volunteers, notes Corboy. Next month, it is launching a website, along with a new child sponsorship programme, both of which she hopes will draw more patrons. Rejecting suggestions that the work has become a chore, she added: "I love this. I get an incredible buzz. I married late. I don't have any children, and basically these are my kids." u
The Next Step can be contacted at 5 Clanwilliam Square, Dublin 2 (01-6619911), tfs@aol.com, or des.macmahon@santos.ie