|© UNICEF video| |Single mothers Maia (right) and Irina (left)
take a moment to rest with their babies. Both mothers now live
at the UNICEF-supported Mother and Infant Shelter in Tbilisi,
Georgia.| By Maya Kurtsikidze On 18 October, UNICEF’s Innocenti
Research Centre will launch ‘Social Monitor 2006: Understanding
Child Poverty in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of
Independent States’, a report urging governments to tackle child
poverty in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Here is the first in a series of related stories. TBILISI,
Georgia, 13 October 2006 – Niko, 4, is proud of his twin
brothers, David and Georgi – siblings he almost never had the
chance to know. His mother, Maia, was thinking of abandoning her
boys because she could not care for them. Fortunately, Maia
found the support she needed at the Mother and Infant Shelter in
Tbilisi. The shelter, which is funded by UNICEF in partnership
with the non-governmental organization World Vision, was opened
at the Tbilisi Infants H