Healing for 70 Trafficking & Abuse Victims, Kosovo

Thank you for your interest in RED International’s partner supporting victims of abuse in Kosovo. We hope you are encouraged by these latest stories:

Anna’s story

Anna came to our centre after years of being in and out of the public shelters. The day she got here we were having a celebration for the summer activities and everyone was laughing and having fun, but her eyes were full of tears, she was quiet and watched the festivities from a distance, she was forlorn. But when you looked at her you could see determination in her eyes, determination to be involved, no matter how little.
As we got to know Anna we found out that at just 15 she dropped out of school and left home causing her life to be one of hardship. She was broken and hurt from being used and abused and she seemed to have had lost all ideas of having dreams for the future. But, the more comfortable she got with us the more open she became and she spoke about her dream of wanting to work in an office and getting to dress like a professional woman. So, we started to help her to accomplish this dream.
Anna has started working with a tutor to work on a base knowledge of math and other subjects and we are constantly encouraged to see her studying and completing all her homework. She struggles and it has not been easy for her to get back into studying but she is driven to accomplish her dream. We are excited for her as she studies hard for her test in January for acceptance into the Economical High School to take part time classes. As she works towards her goal we will walk with, and help her to fulfil her dream.

 Little troublemakers exploring the fact of science for the first time

This year we started a science class for the kids here at House of Joy. In the beginning, it was not easy to keep them focused to learn new things, but as the class went on they got excited to see and learn new things with the projects and experiments they began to create. Each day they started to build little projects; like burning a piece of paper with a magnifying glass (of which they didn’t know what it was before this project), learning more about the sun and where energy comes from, building little parachutes and their very own telephones. This class has helped a lot of the kids to learn new things that they don’t learn in school, as well as to develop their creativity. On top of having fun with this exploring time they are being inspired and motivated to use all their skills and potential to build hope for their future. It is a joy to see them learning to believe in their abilities and potential though the making of these science projects.

Vocational workshops for youth at risk

The project of vocational skills for the future is a project that we started last year and it involves students that are at risk of dropping out of school. We had many students attend our classes last year and received great feedback about them. We offer classes to learn vocational skills in electric installation, welding and tailoring. The students attend their class twice a week for nine months, and throughout those nine months we had the chance to get to know the students and their families better, as well as their background situation and why they believe they are ready to leave school. This year we started with the hope that more kids can be a part of this project. When we heard from the schools and social offices that they had many more students to recommend to us we were filled with joy.
This year we also heard from the corporate office that works with students that have been under arrest and are now back at home, that they wanted to have their students attend. Due to all of this we have 51 students in the first level of vocational skills and 16 in the second level for our classes this year! Because of the amount of students we have attending classes, we decided to add one more, a barber class. Throughout these classes we hope to see the students applying themselves in their vocational skills, building relationships, and attending school more.

Thank you so much for your generous support through GlobalGiving and RED International.
Please share these stories so more young people can find hope for the future in 2017.