Nearly 350 Blind People from Batumi No Longer Receive Allowances

In Batumi, the society “Sinatle” for blind people is situated far from the city center at the end of the Griboedovi Street…Buses do not operate in that direction so it is expensive to get there. It is also difficult to cross the street for Rezo Mikeladze because he is blind. Twenty-three years ago, a landmine exploded near him and he lost his eyesight. He has been a member of the society since that accident and travels to the office everyday.  “We do not do anything here. We cannot work nor have fun here; we just sit around and talk about our feelings and lives with eachother. I travel through half of the city to meet people with similar problems. We have no other choice because healthy people generally do not want to become our friends.”

Nika Tarieladze also joined the club for blind people to escape his lonely life. He has been blind since childhood. It was too difficult for him to adapt to his isolated life. He said that he didn’t always life in such a bad situation. “Do not think that I am missing the communist regime. However, it is the fact that we were employed and received allowances. Sometimes they gave us traveling tickets. Society recognized us and we did not feel as if we were disabled. Nowadays, we are poor, marginalized and receive no social benefits and employments are closed to us. Since 2006 we have been deprived of the allowances of electricity, water and trash collection. Sometimes we were assisted with food, but this no longer happens. In short we now considered as people who have the ability to fend for ourselves and it ends there.”

The Batumi based society had almost 350 members at one time. Now only a small number of the blind people visit the organization.

Workshops surround the office of the society. “They repair cars behind our office,” said grandfather Gela who is also blind. “They will finish their working-day in two hours,” it is 5:20 PM by his watch; “they work until seven o’clock.”

Grandfather Gela or Gela Mikeidze is a miller for the club. He is paid fifteen tetri for milling a kilo of wheat. People rarely bring wheat to have it milled. Thus, he earns very little. “Who mills corn and wheat now to bake mchadi and bread? I often find myself in awkward situations. If a person gives me one lari and tells me it is a ten-lari note I will put it in the pocket without hesitation. I cannot see faces of the money notes; besides that I cannot walk home alone. I receive no allowances either. I can pay only electricity bills from my pension. What else can the person like me tell you?”

Gela Mikeidze works everyday and if he is lucky he can take some bread home. Otherwise, he remains hungry. Nobody works from his family. He receives 40 lari as a blind person and 22 lari as a disabled person of the first category. “My family did not pay communal bills earlier and now I am forced to pay for there debts. The authority deceived us when they promised assistance.”

Rezo Mikeladze, Nika Tarieladze, Mamuka Baramidze and 350 more blind people in Batumi, 16 out of whom are children, do not receive any allowances. They do not receive any food, medical aid, and travel benefits, communal or financial allowances.

“We applied to the government for help in vain. Only non-governmental organizations promised to help and brought some second-hand clothes to the club,” said Zurab Msakhuradze who added, “The chairman knows the exact name of that NGO.”

The chairman was playing domino. He became a bit nervous when the question was asked. “We have petitioned to the government several times. We want to open an enterprise here but won’t be able to get it off the ground if the government doesn’t grant us some money. We cannot compete with other enterprises if we have to pay taxes and we asked the authority to exempt us from the taxes. They refused and the president himself didn’t even answer us. In the past, we produced caps for lemonade bottles and toilet paper and received some wages. Presently, blind people live in the some of the poorest conditions.”

“You can be the judge,” Mikeidze interrupted the chairman. “I had a friend who was very poor. I am ashamed to say that he was left with no alternative but to search through rubbish bins for food. One day, a car crashed into the bin while he was in it and he was killed. The organization aided the family with sixty lari to bury the man. It is a shame that the state dooms such people who live in such appalling circumstances.”

Annual income for the Batumi representation of the Georgian Society for Blinds amounts to 700GEL. The board of the organization should pay salaries to the staff as well as to pay the funeral fees for the dead blind person. It seems that the value of a blind person in Georgia is worth meager sixty lari.

Sofo Zhghenti, Batumi