Hello,

My name is Nicholas Guilbault, a North Carolinian who decided to move to the Republic of Georgia to a small town called Akhaltsikhe for two years. I've been volunteering with First Things Foundation for 10.5 months now, and I've loved every minute of it! During months 1-8, I started learning the daunting Georgian language and customs, how to get around, etc. Now that I've become acquainted with this area, its people, and their 2,500-year-old language, I've started to find locals with great ideas for economic development in their community, and one of those people is named Tamar! She works in one of the nearby villages called Arali where she lives. The clinic's goal is to serve villagers who can't make it into the city by providing quality, dental care from within the village! There she runs her own private, dental clinic out of her home while still being a mom of three little ones! She's passionate about what she does, which is the reason why I'm excited to tell you about her project!

My organization has collaborated with her to renovate her space, and she now hopes to increase how many patients she can see by upping her efficiency in sterilization. Right now she uses a dry-heat autoclave to sterilize her metal tools, but what she hopes to have someday is a steam autoclave, which would cut sterilization time in half (2 hours -> 45 minutes). This would yield 33% growth in the number of patients she could see per week (14-16 -> 19-21 patients)! She works 7 days a week: Mon-Fri in Akhaltsikhe at a separate dental clinic, and on the weekends practices out of her home clinic Sat-Sun. She needs your help to serve her local people! I have already raised $1,740, but I still need to raise $388 to meet my $2,128. Please consider partnering with Tamar as she nears the finish line of optimizing her village clinic! Check out my monthly vlog I've attached here too! For more information on my project, you can visit the project's page here on FTF's webpage.

Below, you can read about what First Things Foundation does and how we go about it:

First Things Foundation places hard-working, social entrepreneurs in impoverished communities serving the poorest of the poor. Our entrepreneurs work 24/7 creating local, long-term, sustainable, entrepreneurial projects. We create jobs and opportunities where they previously did not exist. We listen to the people, collaborate with local businesses and non-profits, learn their local dialect, immerse ourselves in their culture, and live among them in the most modest of circumstances — mud huts, footpaths, bucket baths, candlelight reading, and the occasional intestinal parasite. As a result, our projects lift people out of their poverty permanently rather than merely ameliorating their suffering for a short time. Success for FTF is when we leave the community, permanently.