By Judith Broeker | AiP Program Director
September is a beautiful time of year to travel to Albania and work in Gjirokastra. The AiP team took advantage of this, arriving from Denmark, Armenia and the U.S. to meet our Albanian partners at the Skenduli House and spend a week completing documentation needed to prepare a Condition Assessment Report. This was the next key step in AiP’s project, Albania: Preservation Skills Training for Local Youth.
We also knew that the rainy season could begin about mid-month, so we jumped into our work knowing we had four days to explore every corner, examine all materials and complete the photography. The third day fortunately – yes, fortunately – brought an amazing deluge of rain, which provided us with invaluable information on roof leaks, gutter problems, drainage issues, and more. The amount of rain that fell in that one day demonstrated why the huge internal cisterns that collect this water provide each tower house with a self sufficient water supply including sufficient water pressure to support the plumbing system.
It is now late November, and the report that will guide our work at the Skenduli House is ready. This report, completed by our outstanding volunteers, will provide information to potential funders about the amount of support needed to save this historic masonry giant.
In 2012, there are two opportunities (May and September) for you to join an international team of volunteer vacationers and local trainees to get this much-needed work underway. If travel to Albania won’t fit in your plans for next year, you can still be an important part of the project by making a donation today.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
