Braveheart Georgia is a registered Georgian charity that works with socially disadvantaged children through the vehicle of music. Ecologia is proud to work in partnership with
Braveheart Georgia encouraging cross-cultural exchange with children from Temi community in Georgia and Thornlie Primary School in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire.
We also supported
Datuna, a little orphan boy from Temi to receive life saving medical treatment in Scotland. Back home in Georgia, he is now becoming an ambassador for the disabled in Georgia.
In 1998 Madge Bray, the co-founder of Braveheart Georgia, introduced therapeutic work with children to Kitezh Children's Community and was instrumental in creating the professional training that is now part of the fabric of their therapeutic work with orphans. She has pioneered therapeutic work with abused children in the UK and internationally. The organisation which she co-founded, SACCS, won the Meering Award for its contribution to childcare practice in the UK. She was nominated as European Woman of Achievement Award in 2001 for her humanitarian work in Eastern Europe.
Building a bridge of friendship between two corners of Europe
Datuna visited Thornlie School during his first visit to Scotland for preliminary tests. The children and their teachers took him to their hearts immediately. Although Thornlie School is in an economically depressed area, the children, their parents and teachers rallied together to raise £1,000 to pay for a ramp to be built for Datuna at Temi Community.
Georgian singing has become a passion at the school, and engaging with the Datuna Project has been instrumental in transforming the school's level of attainment. The Thornlie schoolchildren have performed three fundraising concerts in Edinburgh for Datuna. The choir was invited to sing at the Fifth International Symposium of Traditional Georgian Polyphony at Tbilisi Conservatoire, a highlight of 2010. They also paid Datuna a visit at Temi community.
None of the Scottish children had ever travelled away from home before!
Head Teacher David Hughes describes their journey
Read More >
Watch a video of their journey here
Scotland to Georgia
Watch a heartwarming video about Datuna on this page
The Feast of Limkheri Sacred and Secular Songs from Lakhushdi Village, Georgia
Lakhushdi is one of the very few remaining villages in the rugged high Caucasus region of Svaneti, Georgia, where ancient traditions of polyphonic song remain a way of life.
The people of Lakhushdi wish to continue and conserve their ancestral song ritual traditions which are currently under threat of extinction, and pass them on to their children and grandchildren.
Join the trip to Svaneti 23 August - 3 September 2013 to celebrate the feast of the Virgin Mary which marks the beginning of the Autumn harvest season in the Georgian High Caucasus.
Learn more here
You can watch the ancient Ritual of Limkheri and learn 15 sacred and secular songs taught by 3 village elders and songmasters, and by sisters from the prominent Chamgeliani singing family, with Nana Mzhvanadze.
Visit our
SHOP for further details
Money raised will go to "Lidbashi Village Co-operative ", a not for profit union to assist the development of a sustainable community enterprise in Lakhusdi. Their first project was to install street lights for the village square. They are now creating a community heritage centre.
These dvds were filmed and edited by Mike Spring, artist, sculptor, film-maker. He is donating them for the benefit of the village co-operative. mikespring.org.uk
Georgian polyphony is described by UNESCO as a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity”.