Meeting young brides in Fushe Kruja

December in Fushe Kruja is a very cold month for the Roma community. The city is situated right next to a mountain so there are no hills, trees or something else that can stop the cold wind coming from the Adriatic Sea. Even though this area is not particularly characterized by low temperatures, the strong cold wind gives another perception. Roma families start collecting wood and prepare the old stoves for colder days. Many of them are not so lucky to have a stove, thus they get often ill and try to go and visit parents within the community, maybe the ones that own a stove. Some of them can’t find wood so they go searching in the rubbish, everywhere in the city, the important thing is to find something which can get burned. Little boys go searching for hours and sometimes they come home with pieces of plywood which can hold fire just for a couple of hours.

 When you enter within the community, little children, wearing only slippers come running. Their cheeks are read and noses cold, their skin is harsh and their hands are cold. Most of them do not have shoes or coats so they go around in light clothes and slippers. Many of them get ill during winter, but their parents don’t know how to take care of them. Even when they have fever, flu and they are cold, they go out and get even sicker. Parents do not have enough information on how to prevent or tackle fever, flu or any other disease. What happens next is that the child gets really sick, ends up in the hospital and takes a lot of medicines because his condition has deteriorated.

This presentation was necessary because it is important to understand how roma parents still are not conscious about the lack of information regarding health, education, children caring. All these situations have a main cause: Early marriages.

Young girls, 12 years old, get married with young boys who aren't more than 16 years old. These new couples are still children, they don’t live their adolescence, they don’t play enough, don’t go to school, don’t know how to take care for themselves. The ironic fact is that they get married at a very early age and become parents when they are still in their adult childhood. On the other hand their parents don’t know what to teach them because it has been the same for them, and the history repeats itself, perpetuating negative consequences.

Girls become mothers at 13 years old and they are afraid, they don’t know what to do with these new creatures. They tie them up as little dolls, so they are easier to carry up and feed them with what they can. There have been cases when they don’t have breast milk or other kind of food and give babies boiled beans, thinking it is nutritive. These babies grow up not only without vaccination but also without any medical control, and the most important  is that they don’t exist formally . As early marriages are not allowed in Albania by law, young mothers can not register their babies to the public institutions, hospital or health centers.

Ada Mexhiri, Zeqine Gatali and Adela Misha, three young students of Reflect school got married in the last three months. They were all 13 years old and were all frequenting the ADRA community centre in Fushe Kruja. These three young students had just started to read and write, to get involved in activities, to enjoy some free time far from hard work. From now on, they can not come to school anymore; they can’t even go out of their new houses. Now that they are married, they have to stay in their new house, cooking, washing, working more than all family members, just because they are the new brides.

When ADRA staff goes to visit them, they hide because they are shy, they don’t know what to say, they don’t even know to give an explanation about the decision they have made.

After a year working in Fushe Kruja, you understand that this decision is not taken by them; they don’t even think to take such important decisions. Their parents see them as burdens; most of the time, when a young bride comes in the house, the oldest daughter should leave in order to give space to the new arrival. This was the fate of our three students. In their families, a new bride came and, since they live in small rooms where there is not enough space for everyone, they have to go; marriage is the only escape. The same logic works also for the food. When a new member comes home, one of the girls should leave, because these families are very poor and can’t afford to feed everyone.Young girls are the once that sacrifice more than any other member of the community. They are considered as a mouth more to feed so the solution is to force them getting married. Parents put pressure on them, make them feel as burdens, treat them badly so they are forced to leave and to find a new house. 

Albania's 100 Years of Independence!

On 28 November 2012, Albania celebrated 100 years of independence. The country was covered by black and red flags, festive activities and many important events. In each city of the country there were organized many concerts, activities and celebrations in order to give this date the proper significance.

Even in Fushe Kruja city, where our REFLECT project is being implemented, were organized several activities, including a public school activity. Fatmira, our facilitator, had a brilliant idea: create a group of Roma youngsters and prepare a Roma dance for the public school concert. Our students were very excited for this opportunity, not only because they were going to promote their dance and music in front of everyone; but also because it was the first time they were participating in an event made especially for young people their age. It was very enthusiastic see Roma boys and girls gathered to (which is an exceptional case) to prepare the dance for such an important activity. They worked hard for a week; each day after class they gathered at the community center and practiced because they wanted to give the best they could. It was such a miracle to see these boys and girls playing and learning together for a common objective. It was one of those rarely occasions where Roma children feel their age and not forced adults.

As we have already written in our previous blogs, Roma community in Fushe Kruja is a very conservative and patriarchal community. Girls are forced to abandon school in early age because their parents don’t want them to go to school with boys and prefer marrying them in a very early age, even without the girl’s approval.  It was a very positive step seeing parents approving such initiative and allow their daughters to dance and stay in the same classroom with boys their age. The celebrating feeling was influencing everyone and strangely, Roma parents became more tolerant and allowed their daughters to participate to the event and dance in front of everyone. In a normal situation, there would be a big discussion about girls dancing in front of the public; Roma men consider it an unacceptable behavior for grown up girls of 12 years old. Girls at this age are considered as possible brides so they can not go to school, go out alone or participate in public activities. If they do so, they are considered women with doubtful reputation.

The day of the concert, on 27 November 2012, ADRA staff bought some nice shirts and hats with the Albanian flag because the Roma dancing group had asked to wear the Albanian flag for the occasion. They were very excited and couldn't wait to go on the stage and make their performance.

The concert was really well organized; young students from different classes sang and dance various Albanian traditional and modern songs. During the concert, our Roma participants were a little bit discouraged because they saw their peers, the Albanian children, the once who go to school, how free they were, how much they were enjoying the event. Instead of the Roma ones, who don’t go to school and are very marginalized. Being out of school, Roma youngsters are also out of the public life including sportive, artistic and cultural events.

Then their turn came, the Roma group went on stage and as soon as they began dancing, the hole public was standing applauding them. It was a memorable moment. It was one of those moments where there is absolutely no place for cultural and ethnic differences, discrimination and exclusion. People, for some minutes, were in total harmony with each other, sharing a beautiful song and accepting each other like there were no boundaries. Suddenly, some Albanian youngsters went on the stage and start dancing with the Roma group, creating a delightful atmosphere.

ADRA staff was on the same time astonished and proud to have supported such group because they really gave the best by making everyone feel united like never before. After the concert, ADRA staff and the Roma group went to the community center, celebrating such event and immediately planning the next one.

Everyone enjoyed the activity and we hope this will be the first of many others that will come in the future. 

Elsa lost her Job!

The Reflect program in Fushë Kruja is running very well. Women come and find a very nice place were to talk, share their problems and feel welcomed. It is really important that the Roma women themselves have adopted such space and see it as a pause from their daily harsh life. The Reflect circle “Let’s work together” has gathered together more than 80 women in less then 10 months, and this is a very high number considering the nomadic life style this community has.

One of our best students, Elsa Rakipi, 18 years old, mother of 1 year old girl, lost her job this month.

Elsa has been following our classes for a year now and also has been integrated very well among Roma women. She is an Egyptian girl who married a Roma man, so for the Roma women, she is a foreigner who took one of the best men of the Roma community. It hasn’t been easy for Elsa to get along well with the women of such conservative community. For 4 years she has been struggling with discrimination situations learning the language and giving a child to her new family in order to be accepted as a real bride.

Elsa is from the Egyptian community of Fushë Kruja and she has had the chance to go to school for 7 years. She was a very good student and she promised to have a bright future. Her family took her out of school because they needed her to work in a shoe-factory and earn money for the family. It was really hard for Elsa to change her life and start working at such an early age but she was intelligent and even though she was brought to the factory against her wish, she learned as fast as she could and she became a really good shoe’s tailor.

It’s been two years now that Elsa doesn’t work anymore and she really expresses the wish to start working again and go out of the community, out of her routine life of cleaning and taking care of her new family. She had to give up to her job because she got pregnant with 16 years and needed to stay home with the baby. This decision conditioned her life not only because she had a child but also because in the Roma community of Fushë Kruja it is difficult for a young mother to get her life back and return to work.

Elsa has been trying for a year to get back to her job because she thinks it will help her to improve her living conditions. “I can help my husband to built our own house for the family” she says, desperate to have more space for her daughter and to live separated from her parents in law. “My mother in law controls whatever I do and I need to get permission even when I need to go to the market”.

During this year, while following the “let’s work together” circle, Elsa reflected on her opportunities and she decided to try again and start working by taking her child to the kindergarten but things didn’t go as she planned. She started working for only a month and her mother in law considered this was too much for her, that she needed to stay home and take care of her family, “Elsa needs to understand that she is not a girl anymore and she has obligations towards her family. She needs to ask my permission for everything and cannot do what she wants to do, I am the commander of this house and I decide.” Elsa’s mother in law has a very conservative mentality and is the one that feeds the family by selling second hand clothes at the market. She doesn’t permit anybody to decide in the house except her. She is so convinced of her opinion that she even asked one of our ADRAs staff: Don’t you ask your mother in law when you want to go out?

Elsa will continue coming to classes as she thinks this is the only way to get out of the house. It is a chance for her to continue learning and to get more information on how to change her life and mentality by collaborating with her mother in law. The Reflect staff will also continue to talk to, visit and invite Elsa’s mother in law to re-consider her position, as she respects what is being done in the community and she welcomes each of us in her house.

New young bride: new challenge for ADRA staff

Another more sad day for our staff : another of our students, a 13 years old Xhela got married. When she started attending ADRA’s school, she was very eager to study. At the beginning she didn’t know how to read or write but soon she became one of our most promissing student. There were new improvements every day. She managed to recognized all alphabet letters in two months and the third month she begun writing words and sentances. ADRA staff was very proud of her because she was doing very well. We tried to motivate her and to pay attention to her needs as Xhela doesn’t have a father and her mother is in jail for fraud for 13 years. Xhela is the oldest of three sisters. She used to live with her grand-mother; she had to cook for the whose family and clean the house every single day. A week ago she decided to escape from her house. She fell in love with a seventeen years old boy, who was her neighbor, and wanted to live live with him.

As soon as we learned the news, we went to her new husband’s house to see how she was  doing and to talk with her husband and father in law about the school. We knew we couldn’t do much about the marriage because it was her  own decision to get married. But we needed to do our maximum to keep her coming to school.

We tried to explain her father in law that it was very important for Xhela to come to school and that we would take care of her. Her father in law appreciated what we said to him but he didn’t want to let Xhela come to our classes “ She is a young bride now and she has to clean, wash, cook for us, she doesn’t have time for her self” would be his response. We were shocked and profoundly sad about this as we heard directly what kind of life Xhela will be living from now on. 

In the following days of the 4 days wedding ceremony, we went several time to her family in law’s house. We saw her with her wedding dress, shy, embarrassed and afraid to talk and to behave the same way she did in the reflect school. 

We know that Xhela will not have the same freedom and the same cheerful behavior she used to have but we want to stay by her side and convince her family to let her come to classes.  ADRA staff will continue to visit her house every day, to pay visits and talk to her father in law and husband. We strongly believe that we will convince them about the good opportunities the school can give to Xhela. 

Xhela is the second child bride we have had in our school and we need to work hard in this aspect because we know that they live as slaves, working all day, deprived of their rights, freedom and education. This is a very big challenge but we are determinate to continue working with young girls and women so they can understand that early marriage is a tradition that can be changed for the benefit of all young girls who are still children when they decide to get married: “let girls be girls and not brides”- Desmond Tutu

Concerning early marriages we advise you to watch “Girls not brides:  

"Girls not brides: traditions can change - ending child marriage"

Winter time in Fushë Kruja

It has been 3 weeks that the community of Fushë Kruja is facing a new challenge: the cold winter. While walking down the street in the Roma community on the way to the school, we could see how the families suffer since most of the houses don’t have any heating and people lack warm clothes. Most children who accompany their mothers to schools are still barefooted and if it rains, well, they stay wet all day.

Even though, regardless of these harsh conditions, women keep coming to classes. Even sick, they attend the lessons, willing to learn, and they are always glad to have a few hours to spend together in a warm room.

But what especially motivates them, is the topic of this month. We decided to talk about health, illness prevention and hygiene. And all lessons have great success!

During the first lesson, we discussed how mental, physical and spiritual health are equally important. Each women received a paper with a flower on it, a symbol of health, and each of its petal, represented an important factor of well being.

The following lessons were dedicated to hygiene, which greatly interested the girls. We talked about hygiene related to food, breast feeding, water, house environment, etc. This course was based on Facts For Life manual that you can find on http://www.factsforlifeglobal.org/ and that we will keep reading and discussing for the following weeks.

Celebrating Christmas in Fushë Kruja: Making holidays brighter!

This year in Fushe Kruja, ADRA Albania handed out the traditional Christmas packages to all the children. The faces of these kids were once again all smiles thanks to the donors of ADRA Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

In total we gave out 300 gift parcels and shared thousands of smiles! For this special day, we decided to organize, in collaboration with UNDP, an activity about human rights, followed by some music, drinks and fruits for all participants. The goals of the day were to show that they have the right to celebrate every special day of the year and to make it a beautiful day for their children. 

This Christmas we extended the gift giving to include not only the children but the girls and women of the reflect project! 

Since the beginning of December, we had been contacting many women around Tirana, creating a network, in order to collect some «girly» things for our young female students.  We gathered these items and made a package for each Roma woman filled of clothing, jewelry, beauty products, etc. Each package also contained a greeting card with a personal message to each student, which was the most important element of the package. It was a way to tell them again how precious each one of them is! 

We wanted to give these women something significant to help them embrace the Christmas spirit all together! This day was very special, everyone enjoyed the holiday spirit while dancing to some Roma music and sharing some memories from the past few months together!

As mentioned before we dedicated this day to Human Rights education. For an hour, the teacher, the project manager, and a UNDP officer made a brief description about human rights stimulating a very interesting discussion about them in the Roma community.  We used images to aid in the discussion of the right of education, the right to work, the right to have a name, to have a family, to have fun etc. Each image brought comments and discussion from the women as we tried to make sure that every aspect of the issue was mentioned. 

We modified some traditional Albanian songs to have a human rights twist. For example, inserting  “I am red, I am white, I am black, I am proud!” into one of the more lively numbers. We will use these songs for rest of the month and will have the children repeat these lines which have very serious meanings that we what them to understand.

We finished the day with a extensive round of goodbyes, and since the school was closed for the ensuing two weeks it was the perfect way to remember everyone in Fushe Krjua until we returned for the new year.  Our only hope is that the women and children took as much as we did from this.

Marcela interviewed on albanian television

A month ago we had the opportunity to talk on a morning show on ALSAT about the Reflect project in Fushë Kruja. Marsela, one of our facilitators and best students, was invited as a special witness of the Reflect school and shared her wonderful experience live on TV!

At the beginning Marsela hesitated because it is not so easy for Roma women in general to go out of their neighborhood, especially when they have to go alone and not accompanied by a male member of the family. She was excited about the idea of going to Tirana and to live such a special day, but she was afraid her husband and father wouldn’t allow her to go. After a week of negotiations, explanations and ADRA Albania's intervention, Marsela got the permission from her father and her husband and she began preparing a speech that will honor her family and her community on albanian television.

The day of the transmission Marsela surprised us all! She was wearing a suit, brand new shoes and she went to the hairdresser. She looked amazing and it made us all happy to see her being so confident and so eager to give her speech on television!

The transmission went very well, everybody was happy and we congratulated Marsela for her presentation of the project. But then, she confessed us that it had not been easy at all to come that day to Tirana. She had the permission of her family to go, but when she mentioned that she had to spend all her money on boots, because she didn't have any pair of shoes, the reality of Roma communities in Albania catches you up ... It is just shoes. This girl was so proud to have this chance of representing the other women of her community, to speak about the progress they make in class and the importance of this literacy project... that she decided to spend all her money, the rest of it on shoes! If this is not strong will, what is it then? These women amaze us every day with such stories and for their strong belief in the opportunities this project will bring them. And we hope to fulfill their expectations!