Gender Equality Kosovo Project #20369

Widows Fund Fushe Kosova

Project Report | Dec 29, 2015
55 thank-yous for you from Fushe Kosove

By Donjete Jashari | Administrator

Daut and his widowed mother Xhylizare

"My husband Shaban educated my sons the right way – they know they should always listen to and respect their mother.’ 52-year-old Xhylizare is proud of her three boys. They’re all at school – in fourth, seventh and ninth grade – despite coming from a community where a staggering 96% of people have not completed compulsory education.

And she should take pride because now the task of bringing them up, and keeping them in education against the odds, is all on her shoulders. Shaban had a fatal heart attack a year ago, leaving jobless Xhylizare without any support.

Standing behind Xhylizare the whole time we speak, and giving me a little grin every time I look at him, is Daut, the second of Xhylizare's sons. Daut is 13 and I ask him about his favourite subject in school. He says 'English. I want to be able to communicate with people when I grow up and travel the world, and everyone out there can speak English'.

It’s an advantage that Xhylizare herself will probably never have, but she says she’s inspired to keep going by seeing how hard her children try at school, knowing that education will be the only way for them to keep themselves out of the trash cans in this community of rubbish-pickers. But in the short term things are tough, when she can barely manage to feed them every day, and when she doesn't have any soap to wash their clothes and make them presentable for school. Your money has gone towards food for Xhylizare and her boys at a time when they had no other source of income. The Widows’ Fund we established has helped a total of 55 individuals – the women bringing children up on their own, and their kids who, like Daut, now have the chance to dream of a way out.

The Fund is administered by a volunteer from the community. Bashkim is one of our bursary recipients who has gone to university with support from The Ideas Partnership. He visits all the widows we are able to support, and identifies from talking to them what their most urgent needs are. He sees this as his ‘payback’ for the bursary he receives and says ‘I have a very high opinion of this project because it’s doing just what is needed … the widows’ position is very bad.’ He speaks passionately about how it upsets him to see women unable to care for the most basic needs of their children.

In this season of gifts, Bashkim, Xhylizare and many others in the fragile community of Fushe Kosove thank you for your gift of food and the education it makes possible for Daut and the other children like him.

Xhylizare, widowed mother of three schoolboys

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Sep 2, 2015
Saved by you from the rubbish heap

By Elizabeth Gowing | Project Leader

Shkurte and her mother, Vahide

Ten year-old Shkurte's father died eighteen months ago from a heart attack. It’s a tragedy for any child to lose a parent, but for Shkurte and her brother and two older sisters, it pushed their family’s fragile economy to breaking point. Shkurte’s father had worked as a scavenger through the garbage of Kosovo’s capital, Prishtina, and with the money he’d earned from the scrap he collected he had just managed to feed the family. After his death, his widow Vahide and the children were left with stark choices to make.

Dropping out of school (or sometimes not even dropping in) is the norm in young Shkurte’s community where a staggering 96% of people have not finished compulsory education. So this family, where all the children were regular attenders at classes, since The Ideas Partnership had registered the oldest daughter for school in 2011, was unusual. But without Shkurte’s dad’s income, sending all the children to school was a luxury. Many of the 96% among their neighbours who don’t make it through school are kids who go out begging, or shinnying into the skips and using their small fingers to find the best treasure in the trash heaps. Shkurte could have had to join them.

But Vahide didn’t want that future for her daughter. ‘When we didn’t have anything to eat, I’d buy a packet soup for 30 cents and we’d share that,’ she says. She adds ‘though it’s hard to go to school when you’ve not eaten properly’.

Shkurte hears her mother talking and comes over to explain, ‘but I want to be a doctor when I grow up.’ Why? I ask,

‘I want to help children if they’re ill’ she explains. I learn that her brother has asthma; Vahide tells me she doesn’t know how she’ll afford the next pump he needs. Having seen her brother suffering as well as her father, Shkurte could easily be disillusioned by the Kosovan health system; the girl’s motivation to contribute to making it better is particularly touching.

Thanks to your donation, we’ve been able to give nutritious food packages to Shkurte’s family, supporting her mum in her brave decision to keep her children in education even when times have been tough. So far we’ve helped 22 individuals, and with your support we’ll be able to include more widows and their children next month. I ask Vahide whether she has a message to pass on to the donors around the world who’ve supported her family and she says, ‘may God reward them. And say thank you to them for thinking of us.’

It’s a thank you for the vital support you’ve provided to a family on the edge, keeping their children off the rubbish heap, and keeping alive the chance for the future Dr Shkurte to pay it forward to her community.

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