Mary’s Meals started working in Albania in 2005.  We offer help to vulnerable families and school children living in mountain villages.

Winter Food for Vulnerable Families
Mary’s Meals is supporting families who live in remote villages in the mountains in  Mirdita district.  These villages became vast forced labour camps under the country’s repressive communist regime for political prisoners.  When communism ended most returned to their former homes and only those too poor, or rendered too helpless by their harsh experiences, remained.  Many struggle to eke out an existence but food supplies often run out during the long, severe winters.  Mary’s Meals provisions 80 of the most vulnerable families with supplies of flour each autumn to help them through the most difficult months.

School Feeding
Working with our local partners in Projekt Albanien we provide Mary’s Meals in 3 schools in mountain villages in Mirdita.  The meals here take the form of a vitamin enriched snack bar as the schools lack cooking facilities. This food keeps the children going through the winter. Prior to the introduction of the snack bars children frequently missed school as they weakened and fell sick over the winter months.

Rovina’s Song
Rovina’s voice wavered with shyness as she stood up to sing.  Her classmates listened in silence glancing over at us now and again to see what we were making of it.  She sang about hunger.  About children being cold and hungry.

“I have the taste of poverty in my mouth.  My mouth is full of it”

This is not just a traditional lament.  Rovina is singing about something she and the other pupils experience first hand.  They live high in the mountains in the Mirdita district of Albania.  The population here is the human remains of Albania’s particularly harsh communist era. 

The scars from the past are everywhere to be seen in this lonely village.  The regime sent 5 000 political prisoners here, forcing them to work as miners. When communism came to an end, and the camp abandoned, only those too poor to move were left behind.  There is no paid employment and our friends tell us that 90% of the children are malnourished.  The winters here are severe with temperatures dropping to -20 and heavy snow falls cutting them off from the outside world from the end of November to March.  The brutal cold is often the last straw for people already weak.  Quite simply the food runs out.  Many are reduced to living off a ‘soup’ made from flour boiled in water.  

He should know - he was 6 years old when his family was sent to this labour camp. He knows because he has lived in this desperate poverty himself.  For the last 18 years he has devoted his time and energy to getting help to them.

Thanks to your support we are providing help to children like Rovina through Mary’s Meals projects in 3 schools in the area.  The pupils are given vitamin-enriched snack bars to address the children’s need for more protein and vitamins and to keep them well so they can go to school. 

ALBANIA FACTS AND FIGURES

Population - 3.6 million
% population that is undernourished - 6
% population living below poverty line - 25
Infant Mortality Rate per 1000 live birth - 18.6
Primary Enrolment % - 92
Survival to last grade of Primary of those enrolled % - 90
        
Albania is in South-eastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea, between Greece in the south and Montenegro and Kosovo in the north. Albania became a Stalinist state after World War II under Enver Hoxha.  The country was fiercely isolationist only transitioning to democracy in 1990.  The country remains one of the poorest in Europe.