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       March-April 1999		 Text Only version

Healing the Trauma of War at UMCOR's Youth House in Georgia

Young ethnic Georgian girl.

The Republic of Georgia, which gained independence when the former Soviet Union broke up in 1991, has been the scene of bloody battles for Abkhazian independence. Abkhazia had been an autonomous Soviet republic within Georgia.

In 1992, the Abkhaz parliament declared Abkhazia a sovereign state and, with Russian support, defeated the Georgian military in 1993. Since then, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians have been expelled from Abkhazia and have fled to Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

Jane Schreibman takes her camera into an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) center in Tbilisi and also into the Youth House run by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. There, UMCOR struggles to improve the lives of uprooted children traumatized by war.



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The photo of the ethnic Georgian girl was taken by Jane Schreibman. All photographs are copyright © The General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church and courtesy, New World Outlook magazine.