In Albania we work with local volunteers in hospitals, schools, and their surrounding communities. Needs include continuing infrastructure development but also psychological and emotional support for the victims of the war in neighbouring Kosova, and for families of the many children stolen by child traffickers for abuse in the sex industry.

Where helpful, we work with major international aid agencies; our small size helps us react to circumstances and “plug the gaps” in the process of getting aid directly to wherever it’s needed most. We are also delighted to be a partner of the rapidly developing governmental institutions of the country. In 2010 we established a relationship with the mayor and his office, in the main region where we have worked, the Kamza (Kamez) municipality.

Our projects in Albania have recently expanded from our project to construct a bore-hole to provide safe, clean water to 4,000 people in the Bathorë shanty town in Kamza. This is a place where, when we first visited in the early 2000s, children spent their day walking back and forth to the capital city, where they would knock on doors to beg for water — long-term supporters will be delighted to know that Bathorë now has the basis of a water supply and the electricity supply is now legal and somewhat safer as well.

We are now going to supply equipment for first stages of waste management (to avoid piles of highly toxic burning plastic on street corners!) — i.e. a convoy of refuse-collection lorries! With contacts within the country, we also are investigating early stages of community recycling and composting schemes. Rubbish and poor hygiene is the root cause of many major health issues.

We’re also hoping to develop, in 2011/12, play facilities for children in the area, the population of which has soared from 20,000 to 90,000 in seven years.

To find out more

• From our news section, the write-up of our last visit to Albania.
• From the archives, our autumn 2003 newsletter with details of our initial discoveries in Bathorë.