Teaching under adequate conditions

For the first time IPA has realised a project in North-east Albania - the renovation of a school - together with a new local IPA-partner.

Suela Koçibellinj is a young, enthusiastic Albanian. She is the head of Vizion O.J.F. (the equivalent of an English NGO), an organisation which is not run by the state. Like IPA, Vizion O.J.F. focuses its work on educational projects. Suela Koçibellinj found some information about IPA on the internet and sent an e-mail, asking for cooperation in the region of Peshkopi.

Peshkopi is a town in the district of Dibër in North-east Albania, not far from the border of Macedonia. The area is mountainous, the landscape unchanged. It looks very much like other regions in North Albania: the roads are in bad condition, few of them are tarred, and the infrastructure (schools, first aid stations and medical centres) has broken down.

People live in partly collapsed stone houses and, relying on self-supply, fight for survival. The unemployment rate is high, especially for young people who left school after being taught under inadequate conditions and as a result have no chance of getting a proper job training with good perspectives.

In Fushë Alia, a village near Peshkopi, the primary school (1st to 5th year) was in such a bad condition that teaching had become virtually impossible.

The school toilet – out of order

The floors in all the classrooms were ruined and the children had no access to a toilet: the small toilet building, about 50 metres away from the school, had been out of use for a long time. The old wood heaters were not efficient enough to heat the high classrooms. During the hard winters the children were so cold that the lessons had to be shortened to 25 minutes.

The main aim of the project was to renovate the school building so that it would be possible to teach under adequate conditions again. This aim was reached. The total sum of the renovation amounted to CHF 43,000, half of which was paid by a Protestant parish that wishes to remain anonymous. Other parishes, communities and private sponsors made substantial financial contributions, too.

For IPA, Vizion O.J.F. has proved to be a strong and reliable partner in North-east Albania. Together the first project in this region was realised.

For Suela Koçibellinj, the new local IPA-partner, the cooperation was also rewarding: "Every other week, when I visited the building site with my partner, we were invited to a meal by the parents of the schoolchildren. In this way they expressed their gratitude. After a while we were hardly able to cope with all the invitations."