Presence in Albania supports summer camp for Roma children

Around 180 disadvantaged children from the region - one of the country's poorest - will benefit from the chance to attend the summer camp near Shkodra in June and July.

The camp is organized by Malteser Ndihmon në Shqipëri (Malteser Assistance in Albania), which is based in Shkodra, where the OSCE Presence also has a Field Station.

Leading relief organization

The Malteser are one of the leading non-governmental relief organizations in Albania. They work together with the German Malteser Hilfsdienst, as well as partner organizations such as the OSCE, UNICEF, Caritas and Renovabis.

The summer camp is held at Velipoja, which is located on the coast about 30 kilometres from Shkodra and has a beach that is one of the area's major attractions. This year's camp began on 15 June and will last for one month.

Some 180 children between the ages of six and fifteen will attend the camp during the month, in three shifts of ten days each. More than half of them are Roma, while the rest come from poor families living in the mountainous northern region of the country.

Rare opportunity for poor children

According to the Executive Director of Malteser Assistance in Albania, Dr Maranaj Marku, these summer camps - the first of which was organized by the Malteser in 1996 - are very popular because they offer children from the Roma community and poor families an opportunity they would otherwise never have.

"These children are from very poor families and under normal circumstances there is just no way that their parents could afford to send them for a holiday," says Dr Marku.

"The summer camp is more like a summer school than a camp. We normally have two to four trained teachers and a number of volunteers to run it. But one of the good things about the camp is that - in contrast to school - the children attend it willingly," he adds.

During the ten days they are at the camp, the children not only take part in a number of activities, but also have the chance to get to know each other and exchange experiences.

Through these activities, the teachers and volunteers seek to raise the children's interest in traditional school subjects such as mathematics or geography, as well as other practical matters.

High-quality medical care

There is also a doctor at the camp, which means that the children have immediate access to high-quality medical care that they might not have back home.

"In general, the parents are very happy that their children can attend such a camp, and every year there are more and more applicants, so we are trying to find ways to increase the numbers," says Dr Marku.

Its popularity is also evidenced by the fact that some of the children who attend the camp come back in subsequent years as volunteers to help run it.

For many of the children, a stay at the camp offers a rare chance to escape - however briefly - from the harsh realities of a life in conditions of extreme poverty.

The stark contrast between the conditions at the camp and the children's daily lives is described by the Head of the OSCE Presence Shkodra Field Station, Antoine Rozès.

"The camps are the only possibility for these kids to have a holiday. There are trained people looking after them, there is medical care, the food is good, and so on," he says.

Camp makes a "huge difference"

"Comparing life in the camp with these kids' lives - especially the Roma - is like comparing day and night. Some of them are literally living in shacks made of plastic bags and sticks, so you can imagine that going to the camp really makes a huge difference to them."

Since the children are, as Rozès puts it, the poorest of the poor, it is important for the OSCE to help them as much as possible by identifying projects that will have a large impact without requiring enormous amounts of funding.

"The co-operation that we have with Dr Marku and the Malteser is very useful for both of us. Working together, we can implement more projects like this than we could independently," he adds.