Deinstitutionalisation, Kutaisi, Georgia

Photographs © Onnik James Krikorian 2007. 

ARTICLES ABOUT DEINSTITUTIONALISATION

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

A mother waits patiently to enroll her son at an Auxiliary Boarding School for children with learning disabilities somewhere in the heart of the Armenian capital. It doesn’t seem to matter to the staff that the twelve-year old isn’t disabled, all the school requires, the Director says, is a medical certificate.

First published 2003

CHILDREN OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS

At just eight months of age, Tiesa and her two sisters were abandoned by a roadside. They survived by eating roadkill — frogs, in fact — and drinking water from puddles before being discovered. The children, two of them with learning disabilities, were placed in Tbilisi’s Infant House, an orphanage by any other name.

 

First published 2014

LATEST BLOG POSTS

Tbilisi Jam! Fest 2015

Tbilisi Jam! Fest 2015

Two weeks ago saw Tbilisi Jam! Fest 2015 held close to Lisi Lake. Featuring metal bands from the U.S., Europe, and Israel, the event also saw another instalment of the Wacken Open Air (W.O.A) Metal Battle Caucasus in which groups from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia competed to represent the region in the German music festival.

Tajikistan and Foreign Terrorist Fighters

Tajikistan and Foreign Terrorist Fighters

In February I was invited to moderate one of two working groups at a Regional Co-operation and Effective Responses to the Phenomenon of Foreign Terrorist Fighters workshop organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Tajikistan alongside the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UNCTED) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The meeting was financially supported by the British Embassy in Tajikistan and involved Ambassadors, Counter-Terrorism Officials, Civil Society representatives and others.

Three Cartoons by Muslims that take on Radicalisation and Violent Extremism

Three Cartoons by Muslims that take on Radicalisation and Violent Extremism

The 7 January attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a controversial Paris satirical publication that has always had its detractors, including at times the French and U.S. governments, was both shocking and callous. Twelve people were initially killed in the carnage perpetrated by Islamic extremists while an increasingly polarised discourse in its aftermath runs the risk of provoking more as latent, inherent Islamophobia surfaces in Europe.