Education Kosovo Project #18988

Get a Kosovan Kid to School

by The Ideas Partnership

Project Report | May 28, 2015
The 35 Kosovan kids you got into school this month

By Elizabeth Gowing | Co-founder, The Ideas Partnership

Kadire, aged 11, who started school this month

It was the closing ceremony of the weekly academic support activities held on Saturdays at our learning centre in Fushe Kosove. 120 children had attended that day and each volunteer who'd taught the classes was sharing their nominations for a child who'd made a particular achievement to get a round of applause. One name kept recurring. Kadire... Kadire... Kadire...

Kadire is an 11 year-old girl from the Ashkali community in Fushe Kosove. She's lively and giggly and bright. She lives with her brothers and sister, her father who is a rubbish-picker like most of the dads in this part of Fushe Kosove, and a determined mother who says she wants to make sure all her children are educated. Kadire's younger brother suffered brain damage as an infant and their mother is fierce in ensuring he gets the help and medication he needs. She says she wants Kadire to go to school too, and Kadire's success at our Saturday sessions suggests that she'd do well... but Kadire has been out of school since October.

Hysni, the community mediator who is supported through your donations, has been lobbying tirelessly for over six months for children like Kadire to get their right to an education. He's attended meetings with the municipality, with other NGOs and with representatives of the Ministry for Education. The local school have said that Kadire and more than thirty kids like her have missed too many days of school to be educated with the other children, and that Kadire could only start school by attending catch-up classes at the school first. Then they claimed they didn't have the money to run the catch-up classes.

Hysni has persisted, and last Monday his efforts were finally rewarded. The school announced they had managed to organise the catch-up classes and Kadire, and 34 other children from her community set off on their route to school. Their enthusiasm does not seem to have been dimmed by the seven-month wait, and thanks to the volunteers who've run Saturday classes for them (and thanks to you, whose donations have covered the transport costs of these volunteers) the children are ready to show all they know in the classroom. Hysni says 'we worked on this for a long time, but when I saw those children on their way to school this month I knew it was worth it. This is what my community needs.'

A round of applause for Kadire, for Hysni, and for you for making this happen.

Kadire & 34 other children on their way to school

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Feb 20, 2015
The boys you got back to school

By Elizabeth Gowing | Co-founder, The Ideas Partnership

Benjamin

Benjamin is a shy, serious 6 year-old from the community your donation is supporting in Kosovo. We registered him for first grade in September and during the first months at school he was attending school regularly, along with his brother Allmir in third grade. But on one of the weekly home visits made by our mediator, Hysni, we learned that the boys had stopped going to school. The reason was one Hysni had heard from other families during the cold, dark months of December and January following a tragedy in the boys’ community of Fushe Kosove. A seven year-old boy who lives near Benjamin had been attacked by stray dogs while he was out in the street, and was killed. This terrible incident made parents in Fushe Kosove understandably scared of their children walking the more than 2km to school, and especially during the season of snow and ice when the roads were more dangerous and Kosovo’s street dogs more hungry and aggressive in their search for food.

Thank goodness for the kindness of people like you whose donations enabled us to start offering transport for Benjamin and his brother, along with 60 other children, during the winter months. As soon as Benjamin and Allmir were offered a safe route to school they were back in the classroom.

Why do you want to go to school? I asked the boys when they came to our centre this week. ‘To learn to write. If you can’t write you’ve got no chance at all of a job,’ says Allmir wisely. Benjamin echoes his older brother softly, ‘no job,’ he says, shaking his head. They know what it means to grow up with no qualifications – their older brother has no way to earn money other than going through the garbage looking for recyclable scrap. But Allmir knows that’s not what he wants when he grows up, ‘I’m going to be a policeman,’ he says. Next to him Benjamin murmurs quietly ‘I want to be a policeman too.’

Your donation enabled us to employ Hysni to check up on the children we’ve registered for school and to solve problems before they put an end to these boys’ dreams of a future. Two future Fushe Kosove police officers say thank you!

Allmir

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