A new centre for new opportunities

What an exhilarating few weeks we have had in Fushe Kosove! After an extraordinary wait of 7 months to get municipal permission to start building our new community centre, work began at the beginning of June. Bulldozers prepared the land and dug foundation trenches, a protective fence was set up, a 24-hour guard arrived, and his cabin and safe storage for building equipment brought on site, and preparation began of the metal rebars.

As well as the engineers and other workers who've been making this miracle emerge, the site has had plenty of other visitors from our team of staff and volunteers who want to see the new hub for the services we offer take shape. We have around 300 people through our current - rented - accommodation, and plenty of them have also been curious to see the fit-for-purpose, environmentally-friendly new building as it grows from the ground up!

Arlinda, a mother of 5 children and one of the graduates from our Fushe Kosove women's literacy programme, told me yesterday what this new centre means to her. 'There will be more space, and greenery around it for our children to play in. It's a huge benefit for our children and for the mothers of Fushe Kosove,' she said. 'The centre's services were the saving of us.' She knows the impact of the learning that takes place at our centre - having learned to read and write with our literacy teacher, Arlinda has now registered her own handcrafts business. She talked with pride about the status that the new building offers too - 'it shows that our rights are equal to everyone else's.'

She says she's particularly looking forward to going to the centre's garden area we're raising funds for, 'I want to plant a flower there,' she smiles.

We're so happy to have this powerful feeling of shared ownership of our new building and we thank all of you for planting so many metaphorical flowers on this piece of land!