As of today, our regional branch of the Red Cross has reached over 70,000 beneficiaries and helped them significantly. And it is achieved by our team.
Giorgi Bolkvadze
Local Project Coordinator
Georgian Red Cross Society – Batumi Branch
Disaster preparedness is a familiar topic to all of us, as we have all received intensive training in the Red Cross in this regard.
As soon as the pandemic has started, the biggest challenge was panic in the community, which created a kind of chaos. We had to deal with this chaos and it was something quite new for us. The first and the most important task was to disseminate objective and clear information on COVID-19.
To achieve this, we received Red Cross specific trainings and only after that we started the field work. We had to work in many areas – psychosocial assistance, distribution of social packages among the vulnerable beneficiaries, rolling out public awareness campaigns etc.
Furthermore we had emergency tents set up in the city where people took the Covid-19 PCR tests for free. Our volunteers and staff worked day and night to provide as much help and support as possible to as many people as possible.
I remember, when the cases of Covid-19 detected in the nursing home, additional staff were needed to assist caregivers, as there were a lot of urgent issues and considerable lack of resources. We were the first ones who gave them a helping hand.
