MARCH 2017
BRINGING HOPE TO FAMILIES IN CRISIS Albanians from the poorest part of the country are leaving their homes, making their way to a community in the port city of Durres, in search of a better life. However, this community is situated on land that was previously a swamp. Sadly, rather than finding a better life, the reality is, they find the same hopelessness and struggle, just in a different place. Approaching Durres especially on the main roads, you see few signs of poverty. It looks and feels as if Albania has made a great recovery from formerly being one of the poorest countries, not just in Europe, but the world. Image is everything in Albania – and it hides many of the scars and troubles that lie unseen close to the surface. Arriving on the main street of the city you see night clubs and casinos filled with men in suits, but as you turn off in to the swamp community – everything changes and there is nowhere for the deep poverty to hide. Aimless shadows walk the streets and people retreat into their homes as the dust and pollution is revealed thick and heavy against the lamp lights as the whole place goes quiet. “This community is a town within a city and it is where the majority of the families we serve live,” Kostandin Vasilini, Mission Without Borders’ (MWB) Albanian Program Manager, says. “The area is completely flat as it is two metres below sea level and it was one of the few places where the poor could build huts. In the winter when it rains the whole place floods as there is no proper sewerage system or water supply.” Sewer channels run like sad and bleak arteries through the community and along their banks. Piles and piles of garbage line the way stretching off into the distance. The water is not safe to drink and septic holes and the smell of sewage is everywhere. When it rains big pumps manage the flooding, but if one thing goes wrong, terrible situations can happen for families here. “The poor who came here from all over Albania,” Kostandin continues, “did not realise what the land was like. 50 years ago it was the sea, it was where people would fish and where big boats would pass into the harbour. The ground on which the houses are built on is not stable, as just four metres down is clay. The buildings are slowly sinking. It is a big mess and the roads when it rains are almost impassable. No one would choose to live here, the ground is too salty to grow vegetables, so we have to find other solutions to support families here.”
On top of this, families who live here are treated as outcasts in the rest of the city because of their background and poverty. The community has its own school which struggles to provide education and parents find it impossible to get their children to better schools because of class rejection. Illiteracy is therefore a huge problem as many parents have no choice but to pull their children out of school and send them out to the streets to collect plastics and iron to sell. The poverty cycle simply continues. In this area alone, MWB’s Albanian team supports 91 families and, has developed partnerships and works closely with the local church and the municipality to help develop the area. “We build trust with the parents to help tackle these issues,” Arjan Ndoni, who has been a Family Coordinator in Durres for over 20 years, says. “We provide the children with school materials and backpacks to give them confidence and encourage the parents to keep the children in school. We are planning an After School project here and last year, 55 children from the community came to Summer Camps, plus 80-90 family members now attend the local church.” Inside the family homes there is a lot of tension, alcohol abuse and subsequent violence. MWB supports the parents emotionally and we try to resolve the root causes of conflict, which is almost always because of financial burdens. We ease these burdens by identifying potential and empowering fathers to take professional training courses through which they can become welders, plumbers, mechanics, and in some cases, we also help their children go to college and university. However, it is a long process and takes years to get to this stage. Right now, the focus is on their immediate needs and introducing the love of Jesus into their lives.
Kostandin Vasilini, (MWB) Albanian Program Manager helps an elderly grandmother and child..
Arjan Ndoni, Family Coordinator, delivers a much needed OCL parcel to a single mother.
“Most importantly, we share the Gospel of Christ with them and through it seek to provide hope in every area of family life. In this way, with continued investment, patience and hard work, little by little over the coming years, we can create lasting change here.” Arjan (Ari) Ndoni, Family Coordinator, Durres Albania By sponsoring an Albanian family (just $40 per month) in the Durres region, you can begin to provide hope to them on every level. Your support provides food and hygiene parcels for the family, plus clothes, shoes, blankets and medical support. This lessens their financial burdens and means they can begin to save money to support their children rather than falling further and further into debt. You can also empower our Albanian Coordinators to provide emotional and spiritual support to families and even help send a child to college or university through our Scholarships and Vocational Training project. Through your donations or sponsorships you can create sustainable and long-term change, helping families find a better life, filled with hope.
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THE STRUGGLE IS REAL - FIGHTING TO SURVIVE AND PROVIDE FOR HIS FAMILY Shkelqim, 24, also lives with his wife and two young sons in the swamp community in Durres. And, like so many others, they came here in search of a better life, only to be mistaken, and unfortunately nothing changed. With self taught skills as a plumber, Shkelqim was forced to return to Albania after working in Greece when the economy there collapsed. Rejected as a traveller and an outsider, he has not been able to find a job and is forced to walk the streets each day searching for plastics and metal to sell. “My biggest challenge every day,” Shkelqim says, “is to get food on the table. Nothing in our lives is stable. Often I return home with nothing and when I see my children, I feel a terrible stress, I could cry. There is only so much iron in the city as there are so many other men like me looking for the same things.” Shkelqim and his family live in an abandoned former communist industrial estate in the community. After the regime fell the estate was left to the homeless and poorest in the city to occupy the warehouses, stores and cellars. Here the roads are not paved, garbage and rubble lines the meandering alley ways, and, without a proper sewer or water supply, when it rains, the area floods. His home is damp and cold and outside stand bags and bags of the plastic bottles which he has collected. “I would not have been able to carry on without your help,” he says, “but to be able to stand on my own two feet would mean everything to me. If I had tools I could find work, I would be respected. I know how to make pipe systems, but at the moment all I have is a pair of pliers.”
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nd the greatest of these is Love... 1 Corinthians 13
In a community which often floods and does not have proper plumbing systems, there is a terrible irony to this father’s situation. Recently enrolled in the Family to Family program, Shkelqim and his family now receive material aid such as monthly food and hygiene parcels, clothes, shoes, blankets and furniture through Gifts in Kind. This is the start of a five-year journey which we pray will end with the family being selfsufficient and able to stand on their own two feet. Whilst there is a long road ahead, the next stage for Shkelqim is to empower him to become a qualified plumber and eventually provide him with professional tools, so that he does not have to collect plastics from bins anymore and can provide for his family, releasing the stress and burden from his life. Mission Without Borders Albanian Coordinators are working with almost 100 families in this community, striving to change the outcomes for fathers just like Shkleqim and to increase the chances for his children to escape the poverty cycle.
HOW YOU CAN HELP A FAMILY IN CRISIS. 1. Give a donation to bring immediate relief to a family in crisis. 2. Sponsor a family ($40/month) - We have three families in this community needing sponsors right now. 3. Pray for our ministry, for the families and coordinators, that God will continue to bless them and the work they do.
A WORD FROM DAVID My wife Jill and I approached the stark, derelict looking factories, turning off the tar-sealed road onto what was virtually a dirt track. Fortunately the weather was dry, or the road would have been just mud. The buildings were what I expected to see, typical of those left as a legacy from former Communist days. However, the non-existent road surface and deep pot-holes made for a very bumpy car ride. We stopped outside a flat roofed building, surrounded by a wall approximately 3 metres high and accessible only through a huge metal gate. Our driver made a phone call and the gate was opened from the inside by a young woman, with her little daughter by her side. We were finally meeting the family that my wife and I sponsor in this swamp community in Albania. After seeing these appalling living conditions first hand, we realised how much this family needed help. It is with this experience, that I encourage you to give what you can to help a family in need. This young woman’s expression of gratitude brought tears to our eyes. As we left them, it was as though we had known each other for years - a bond that was evidence of God’s Love for His people. MISSIONWITHOUTBORDERS PO Box 7533 Silverwater NSW 1811 | 10 Stubbs Street Auburn NSW 2144 Website mwb.org.au facebook.com/MissionWithoutBordersAustralia Phone 02 9647 2022 Email australia@mwbi.org