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The Special School for Cerebral Palsy is Suffering due to a Lack of Water

March 11, 2008

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti

The Gurjaani Boarding School for Children with Cerebral Palsy is the only state establishment of its kind in Georgia. There are nearly 100 students in the school. The boarding school has not been supplied with water for seventh months already. The situation exacerbates the hard living conditions of the children.

Marina Chuchulashvili, the director of the boarding school, reported that they used the water from the well located in the schoolyard. “Late in August of 2007 the tools which we were used to get the water from the well broke. Ever since, we have been suffering without water. The water company supplies us with water very rarely and we cannot use it for drinking; people claim it is polluted. The personnel gets water from the Akhtala Stream by car or by hand. There are instances when we do not have any water at all. We have petitioned the local government for help, but in vain. The budget of the boarding school is too small to repair the equipment ourselves. Although the 1 500 USD necessary to repair the well is not a large sum, we cannot spend the money assigned for the children’s nutrition and medical treatment; we have many other problems apart from that,” said Ms. Chuchulashvili. She added that in several days the school might remain without water; the Gurjaani Water Company will supposedly not supply the school with water in the future.

“The Water Company wrote to us that unless we pay 600 GEL of an old debt and install the meters with our funds they will not supply us with water anymore. It will be very difficult for us. In fact, we will not be able to clean the school, to wash the children and to prepare meals,” said the director.

Employees of the “Gurjaani Water Company” do not deny the fact that the boarding school will not be supplied with water because of accumulated debts. “The school has debts and does not have a meter. So we do not know how much water they spend. They use the water at least once a week, but they do not pay for it. Unless our requests are satisfied we will not supply them with water anymore. We warned them about these problems some time ago, but they did not listen,” said Givi Lazariashvili, the director of the Water Company.

Tamaz Abramishvili, the chairperson of the Gurjaani Municipality Board, reported that they do not have any information about the above-mentioned problems.
“We do not have any information about the water problems of the boarding school for children with cerebral palsy. However, we plan to investigate all schools in Gurjaani, including the boarding school. We will support the schools to resolve their problems regarding utilities. We have allocated an appropriate amount of funds in the local budget as well,” said the chairman of the Municipality Board. 

The administration of the boarding school urges the local government to help. If not, the parents of the school’s students will hold protest demonstrations to attract attention from the government.

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