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Qamil overcomes poverty in Albania
Qamil, from Albania, with the Irish dairy heifer that his family received from Bóthar. |
Bóthar works in partnership with Heifer Albania to assist impoverished families in remote rural regions. Bóthar has been sending airlifts of Irish Dairy Heifers to Albania since September 1999.
LIVING in an extremely poor country by western standards, throughout their history the warm and hospitable Albanian people have been oppressed, robbed and confined. Most recently, they have been subjected to the reflected horrors of war as 600,000 refugees poured over the border from neighbouring war-torn Kosovo.
The already poverty stricken Albanian farmers, welcomed the hundreds of thousands of terrified, hungry, beaten and completely demoralised Kosovan people. They welcomed them not only into their country but also into their homes.
Bóthar recently received this field story from Heifer Albania staff worker Orian Cuko about one of the many families that have received a Bóthar dairy heifer from Ireland. These are Orian’s own words:
Mr. Qamil Lloshi, 52 years old, lives with his children in the Luzi community near Kavaja. This is a very poor village in centre of Albania. His wife passed away five years ago and now he has to take care of and raise his children by himself. He has 3 sons and two daughters.
Before taking part in the Bóthar and Heifer Albania project, the family earned an income by selling some vegetables in the market near the national road. Each year, Qamil earned an income of around 50,000leke (€390). At the same time, he had to pay so many expenses and he had some debt as well.
Qamils daughter helped him to take care of the few sheep that the family owned, so Qamil has more time to take care of the small piece of land that he owns. In 2003 she stop going to school to help her family out more on the small farm. Since then, she has been helping her dad and brothers and sister and trying to be a good “mom” for them. But, the job is hard and she needed more help, so Qamil took his eldest son out of school as well.
At that time Bóthar and Heifer Albania were ready to start a new project in that area and Qamil was one of the first people attending the meetings and wanted to be part of the project. He made the decision to be a member of the Bóthar - Heifer Albania project. Subsequently, he reconstructed the shelter he had on his farm and made the necessary preparations to receive a dairy heifer from Ireland.
One year later, income from the cow and sale of vegetables has increased the family income to €620 per year. So far, all the old family debts have been cleared. Qamils son and daughter have started going to school again. He is now able to save some money and prepared to rebuild their house.
At the present, Qamil's family has a better economic life. After a day's work in the fields and with the animals, the family always sit together around the fire and spend their evenings chatting together. When we visited them, last July, we spent an evening with them, their smiles showed their happiness from their hearts. During the coffee Qamil told us: "Bóthar didn’t just give me a cow, but gave life to my kids and all I know is that we were in very difficult conditions and now so many things have changed for us in a very good way, so I think we have been blessed and not only us but all the village now is different, there is more life and more smiling faces around us, thank you." - Orian Cuko
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