By Elizabeth Gowing | Project Leader
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.
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.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser