Help Empower 300 Women in Kosovo through Education

Fatime is a 37 years old woman. Her parents were divorced since her childhood and her aunt was taking care after her since she was two months old. She never ever met with her mother.

Fatime says: “I have always dreamed to meet with my mother but I have heard that her husband is a very tough guy by not allowing her to seek after me and I had no courage to seek after her. I was born with a lame leg, for which I had surgery at five years of age, but the operation failed, and now every time I walk I feel pain. Later on my eyes got weak and I have a very high dioptre for distance. Later on I got married when I was 19 years old in a village of Baje, and my husband is also disabled. Now we have three kids that are 17, 15 and 8 years old. We have a small house, and my husband works sometimes. I have enrolled in the Women for Women International--Kosova program, by choosing gardening training but when a possibility was opened to me to make handicrafts from the Organization and that I will be paid for that work, even though I can hardly see out, I have taken some crafts to work and I am ready anytime to work. I think that in the women’s groups we can discuss many things that concern us every day and we have a possibility to change many things in our lives”.

All the words for her mother Fatimja said them with a lot of pain and tears in the eyes, without being aware that she will meet her very soon. In village of Terpeze, our program is conducted and there lives the mother of Fatime and this was a very good opportunity for Fatime to meet with her mother. Even though her mother was not part of our program, she lives very near to the house where our program took place. Fatime met with her mother after so many years in a very touchy moment but she was welcomed very well by her mother and her brothers that she met them now.

After the reunion, Fatime said: “I never had the strength to discuss my life with anyone—I never said what a huge wish that I had to meet and embrace my mum. The women’s group in the program enabled me to share these sorts of things with my peers. On the day that I talked about it in the program, I remember I was not being able to sleep well. Now that this dream has been realized, I will be grateful to the WfWI-Kosova Organization for as long as I am alive”.

Even after graduation, Fatime has become a truly active citizen. She has organized women of her village Baja to enroll in our program. She is a member of a farmer’s association “Prodhimi Drenas” and also she participates in different fairs by selling produce she has cultivated in the greenhouse—a project from her vocational skills curriculum at Women for Women-Kosova--such tomato, different pickles, etc. She is also active in meetings for disabled people held in Hendikos in which the participants create handicrafts together and sell them in different fairs.