Protecting Children Protecting Nature

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, the poorest part of Scotland. We also support Datuna, a little orphan boy from Temi to receive life saving medical treatment in Scotland.

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.

Madge introduced Datuna to Thornlie School
on 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

Find out about our Appeal for medical treatment for Datuna

Watch a heartwarming video about Datuna on this page