Merkuri

Shelter for women – victims of domestic violence and their children was established in frame of the project “Support for the system of domestic violence prevention and protection of victims of violence in Georgia” in March 2018. The project was co-financed by the Polish Development Cooperation Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. The project has been realized in partnership with the HumanDoc Foundation from Poland.

“We create a cosy atmosphere to make them feel like at home. In the shelter, they are not victims anymore but they become friends […]. Even if it is mentally and psychologically difficult at the beginning to imagine a different life, we do our best to show them a different world where they will blossom.”

Irma Daraselia, shelter administrator.
For 9 months of 2018 Association “Merkuri” host 24 beneficiaries in shelter.

“When I decided to run away from my husband, I went back to my family but my father did not want me to come back home. When you are not accepted by your relatives, you think you will not be accepted by the whole society […] I encourage people to speak out, going to shelter is a first step to ruin the stigma.”

Anonymous testimony
“In 2008 when we moved from Abkhazia, the life was hard and society was really closed-minded. My husband was violent and against any kind of evolution. When it comes to you, you don’t know what to do, you feel confused. But one day I left, after 22 years of domestic violence. I was shy at the beginning but after spending weeks in the shelter and receiving psychological support, I started to blossom. Now I have a work and I am independant.”