Get a Kosovan Kid to School

Saturdays are always the busiest days at the centre in Fushe Kosove which you’ve helped us to pay for. It’s on Saturdays that the extracurricular classes are held, and with the school year just having started, the centre is busy with over 90 children buzzing with excitement.

This Saturday is particularly hectic because we have a special guest: British singer Joss Stone is coming to visit. But just before she arrives, I manage to have a little chat with Samet, a 10 year-old boy who is attending classes. Samet looks at me carefully when I ask him about his dreams for the future, and tells me he wants to be a policeman when he grows up.

‘Samet is always very punctual and never misses a class; he is very attentive,’ says Lirije, who is teaching Albanian at our centre. She’s one of our over 120 volunteers who take turns teaching on Saturdays and whose transport from Prishtina is covered by your kind donation.

Our mediator Hysni tells me that Samet lives with his parents and four siblings, though he is the only one attending the public school right now. A year ago, Samet’s father, only just managing to provide for his family by what he earned from singing at weddings, decided to take his family to Germany, in hope of a better life. He and the children were sent back to Kosovo though it was hard to fit back into their former life especially when Samet’s brothers and sisters had lost their place at the local school . The children are now attending intensive classes initiated by The Ideas Partnership, to catch up with their peers.

But after this confusing time shifting countries, at least one person in the family still has the stability of school, and your donations have equipped Samet with school bags and school supplies for his lessons so he can succeed there.

Besides the classes on Saturdays, Samet loves our Reading Together project. He was one of the first children to try Reading Together through Skype, pairing with a volunteer in the UK with whom he reads each week from our stock of bilingual books.

By the time Joss Stone arrives he is deep in a story.

Thanks to you, Samet’s siblings will get back to school, and Samet will have the chance to contribute to building Kosovo. We believe that he can become a hard-working policeman who really enjoys reading.

Shpresa, 11, and Vjollca, 8 are up and ready an hour early, for another day at school. They wash their feet and hands, put on clean clothes and grab their books. During the summer their grandfather, Shaban, walks them to school because Shpresa’s disabled arm prevents her from carrying her books. During the winter months, The Ideas Partnership (TIP) provides transportation for them and other schoolchildren in Fushe Kosove.

            This typical day has become a reality for Shpresa and Vjollca; however, life wasn’t always this way. Only when your donation enabled The Ideas Partnership to offer support for Shpresa’s disability - through physiotherapy, funds for medical fees and school transport - did the girls’ parents believe that she could attend school and then her sister started school too.

            Shpresa, Vjollca, their mother, grandfather and their preschooler brother and sister live on what their father earns from collecting plastic from the garbage and selling it at 13 cents per kilogram. Without education, this is the only livelihood that the girls would have ahead of them, too. But – even in this community where 96% of people haven’t completed compulsory education - the generations without schooling are changing with these two pupils and their enthusiasm for learning.  

            Vjollca explains “It’s better now because we have friends. We learn new things and are happy to get good grades.” Vjollca’s favourite subject is math and she now has dreams of being a lawyer. Shpresa says “I’m happy I can play sports at school and I can use my arm more easily” – thanks to the twice-weekly physiotherapy sessions and medical support which TIP provides with your donation.

            Shpresa has been involved in TIP’s physiotherapy sessions for alost a year now and her mother says that she sees progress in her capabilities. TIP also assists the family by taking Shpresa to the doctor’s office to be assessed.  

Shpresa’s name means ‘Hope’ and her whole family now seems to have this positivity about the future. Her mother, Sofia, says “I feel so much better now with the girls going to school. I have hope … because they will be able to get jobs and help the family.”

Thank you for changing the course of a girls’ life and the dreams of her family.