Stages
c/o Jackie Swales
Tbilisi
Georgia

25 October 2007

Dear Carey and all the Scottish football charity supporters,

On behalf of the Georgian charity Stages I would like to say a huge thank you to you all for the phenomenal amount of money you raised recently and generously donated to our chosen children's hospital here in Tbilisi. I can say without hesitation that we could not have dreamed of a donation this large! The hospital has never received a gift on this kind of scale from the United Kingdom, so I am proud to say that Scotland has now made an incredibly positive mark on the Georgian community.

I was really pleased that some of you were able to visit the hospital during your stay here. It was important to see the kind of conditions the infants are treated in and some of the difficulties faced by hospital staff. The lack of decent, working equipment in the premature baby unit is a big problem. Indeed on this occasion we saw that two babies were having to share one incubator, therefore risking cross infections. Your donation is going to be used to buy a new incubator for this unit, giving babies a much greater chance of survival. It is no exaggeration to say that your hard work in raising money will result in lives being saved here in the future.

We were also extremely grateful to you all for the bags containing baby clothes and blankets. These will be put to very good use either in the premature baby unit or the orphans' room, which some of you also saw. Part of your donation money will be going towards supplying these orphans with nappies on a regular basis. This is a very basic need but one which is often not met due to a lack of funds. Clean, disposable nappies will provide greater hygiene and comfort than some of the material rags which have been used in the past.

I heard many great stories about how the money was raised, from dinner dances and auctions to work collections and sponsored half marathons. The amount of effort that was made to raise money on the hospital's behalf was incredible and we thank each and every one of you for your kindness and support.

With very best wishes,

Jackie Swales

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