Spotlight on The Genesis Association

GENESIS was founded in 1995 to promote the health and well-being of street children, orphans, and the most impoverished sections of the population.

The GENESIS Association works to support the population of Georgia by reducing their vulnerability caused by inadequate healthcare services and the absence of social security - primarily through better access to healthcare services, promoting healthcare awareness and mobilising communities to make sustainable changes.

What is our mission?

The Mission of Genesis is to achieve health and life quality improvement for poor communities and most vulnerable societal groups of Georgia.

GENESIS pursues its mission through:

 1. Promoting and setting up pilot non-governmental, non-profit, community needs-based healthcare models and services which aim to help the poor and most vulnerable societal groups of the country;
 2. Provision of healthcare and social support to charity focus group of GENESIS: street children, orphans and disabled individuals who are institutionalized or live with impoverished families;
 3. Promoting health awareness of most vulnerable population through primary health education activities and publications;
 4. Improving skills of physicians and healthcare managers;
 5. Advocacy and lobbying for the amendments/creation of a legislative framework that supports the development of resource-effective and sustainable healthcare systems suitable for the Georgian environment and affordable for its impoverished population.

What do we do?

One of the principal ongoing activities of GENESIS is the Primary Healthcare project for impoverished rural communities of Georgia, funded mainly by OXFAM/NOVIB. During the last 8 years our out-patient healthcare project, independently set up for remote rural areas of Georgia, focused on the following main priorities:

 Needs Based Planning and delivery of a practical comprehensive package of out-patient healthcare services (see below), including access to more advanced (than for an ordinary GP practice) medical technologies (based on consideration of a very limited accessibility of the rural population to diagnostic services);
 Community Health Improvement through health promotion and preventive health education of community members, local health workers and community activists/unemployed nurses - through periodic Community Health Education sessions and through a Community Health School operating at the GENESIS PHC centre;
 Consumer Participation in planning and periodic upgrading of the service package (through a base-line and follow-up/comparative health and social surveys aiming at identifying community healthcare needs, preferences for feasible types of services, as well as for the best ways/times for delivering PHC package, accessibility issues, buying capacity, etc.);
 Disability Related Interventions – providing pilot homecare and community rehab to immobile community members who cannot access the established PHC centre;
 Outreach service delivery to the most remote areas with geographical accessibility barriers through a) mobile outreach services to remote settlements of selected communities, and b) rehabilitating nurse-lead health posts in high mountainous villages (set up in collaboration with regional governmental bodies in West Georgia);
 Promoting interdisciplinary approaches for local infrastructure rehabilitation (e.g., water supply, roads, rural transport – factors putting effective delivery of healthcare under significant risk);
 Development of an alternative non-profit ownership model of healthcare, with active involvement of the local community;
 Combining available funding resources to contribute to better (however, still limited) sustainability of the services delivered;
 Advocating on identified health and social needs of impoverished rural communities, including specific needs of the most marginalised population groups, brought to the attention of local, regional and the National decision making bodies.

How do you get involved?

GENESIS is currently looking for a partner organisation for setting up a joint consultation project aiming at adequate development of PHC system in rural parts of Georgia .

Please also visit our website at http://www.genesis.ge

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