The starting point

“If you want to make a quick assessment of a state, look at its streets and its schools,” as the saying goes. After the end of the Stalinist era in the early 1990s, Albania was completely run down – not just roads and schools.

Since then, a lot has been done in reconstruction. Schools were also renovated, but of course primarily in cities and larger towns. In smaller and remote villages, school buildings can still be found in a shocking state – “more like a storage shed,” as students from Proptisht put it. Neither state nor municipalities have the financial capacity to meet all their obligations. Time and again, we come to schools like this during the Christmas parcel campaign.

Renovation projects

Through our work, especially the dormitory, we were directly confronted with the condition of the Bishnica school. We couldn’t raise enough donations for a complete renovation, but we were able to agree on a cooperation and renovate the school building with partners in 2011. The municipality contributed financially and with craftsmen, we as CHW with donations in kind and money as well as with volunteers, and the German Embassy in Tirana with financial support.

In proven cooperation, only with other municipal partners, the “Selim Gjona” school in Proptisht was renovated in 2014, the “Tomka Laçka” kindergarten in Pogradec followed in 2018. Both times, Diakonia Albania staff were in charge of the project and ensured that finances were used efficiently. “I wouldn’t have thought that you could achieve so much with so little money,” the German ambassador marveled at the reopening of the school in Proptisht.

Unfortunately, other projects could not be realized.