Get a Kosovan Kid to School

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!