Georgian NGO Raises over $8,000 in Grants for Project Focusing on Disabled Children with IATP Assistance

The NGO “GEA” assists disabled children in Khasuri, Georgia, by training educators to meet the special needs of their students, renovating the kindergarten, and producing a video about the importance of inclusive education. All these activites were made possible due to grants – totalling over $8,000 – from local and international donors as a result of skills GEA staff acquired from IATP training. Throughout the fall, IATP trained GEA and other NGOs working with the disabled in computer and Internet skills. The training culminated in a week-long course, sponsored by the IATP center in Tbilisi in October 2007, where participants learned the fundamentals of fundraising and grant writing.

American fundraising expert Kathy Starostka guided training particiapants through the entire grant proposal writing process, including setting realistic goals, proper planning and budgeting, and engaging partners to ensure cost-sharing. After GEA representatives completed the course, they started working on an actual proposal for their newly founded NGO, which addresses the problems of the disabled.

GEA searched the Web for grant opportunities throughout October at the IATP center in Tbilisi. As a result of their work, their project “Development of Inclusive Education for Khashuri Kindergarten # 7” received $4,358 from the Open Society Georgia Foundation and $3,320 from the Kashuri Municipality government.

Kindergarden #7 in Kashuri is slated to become the only inclusive public school in Georgia for children in grades below the first grade. Due to GEA’s efforts, 12 disabled children have already been integrated into the general class. To further its mission, GEA researched additional funders at the local IATP center, submitted grant applications, and won a $1,000 grant from the Rotary Foundation. With the money from the new grant and technical support from IATP, GEA is currently creating a public service announcement (PSA) about the importance of inclusive education. This PSA will be shown on Georgian Public Broadcasting starting June1 – International Children’s Day.

“If it were not for IATP’s effort of organizing the grant writing training, we probably would never be able to receive these grants. We simply could not afford to pay a professional to complete the grant proposals for us. But with the help of Kathy Starostka and IATP we wrote the proposals ourselves and we succeeded,” stated the President of GEA Khatuna Ghavtadze.

Comments

[aion kinah]

I’m so glad I found this site…Keep up the good work I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part.
I just wanted to make a quick comment to say great blog.

[stock picking]

This is a really good cause. $8000 is no mean feat.