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Kosovar Children Welcome School Kits from U.S. Churches
By Mike DuBose*
Date: October 5, 1999 
KOSOVO MALISEVO, Yugoslavia (UMNS) -- They came bearing meager gifts, but arrived to a hero's welcome. Hundreds of cheering school children in the village of Dragobil mobbed a delegation from the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) delivering school kits packed by church volunteers in the United States.
Team members were showered with bouquets of fresh flowers, an extravagant luxury in this dusty village near the city of Malisevo, about 25 miles southwest of Pristina. Dragobil, like most of Kosovo, is recovering from 18 months of bitter ethnic warfare.
The children formed an enthusiastic receiving line to shake hands and slap high-fives with their visitors.
"Driving up and seeing several hundred children running to greet us, I was extremely humbled because I know how little we were offering and how much it meant to them," said delegation member Leigh Kammerer. Kammerer is married to Bishop Charlene Kammerer of the church's Charlotte, N.C., episcopal area.
A delegation of four spouses of United Methodist bishops and a representative of the churchwide Board of Global Ministries' Women's Division traveled to the Balkans Sept. 18 - 28 to view UMCOR's work and help devise new strategies for church relief efforts around the world.
Other members of the delegation included: Mitzie Dew, wife of Phoenix Area Bishop William W. Dew Jr.; Jane Ives, wife of West Virginia Area Bishop S. Clifton Ives ; Hannah Meadors, wife of Mississippi Area Bishop Marshall L. Meadors Jr.; and Claretta Nesbitt of the Women's Division. The group was led by Meadors and Judy Wollen, UMCOR's volunteer coordinator for the area, based in Armenia.
The school kits are shoulder bags sewn by United Methodist volunteers and packed with a standard set of basic school supplies. Some 2,000 primary school students in the four villages where UMCOR is working received a kit.
A line of students snaked across the schoolyard as each child picked up a bag. The orderly process dissolved into a chorus of excited voices as friends paired off to compare the contents of their bags. Unfamiliar pink erasers and plastic pencil sharpeners caused a sprinkling of giggles.
"Watching the faces of the children, I just wished some of those who prepared the bags could see the faces of the children and know that just a little bit can go so far," Meadors said.
School director Zyber Paqarizi showed visitors the remains of the old primary school, destroyed when a Serb tank knocked a hole in one wall to take cover inside a classroom. He then proudly displayed the yet-unfinished new school building, begun by U.N. peacekeeping troops.
Drinking water has recently been restored to the school by a partner agency in Action by Churches Together (ACT), the ecumenical partnership that UMCOR works through in Kosovo.
The delegation attended a meeting of the parent/teacher council in one of the new classrooms where leaders praised the work of UMCOR's Angela Oliver in getting the school back in operation. "She really, really helped us," Paqarizi said. "We're going to create a real school for the kids." Oliver is UMCOR's director of community development in Kosovo.
New classroom furniture and blackboards were bought with funds from the Kosovo Advance.
Oliver is helping reform parent/teacher councils at the schools and assisting village leaders with needs assessments.
The re-emergence of public education is a major issue in Kosovo, where schools for Albanian children were forced underground by the Serbs. Teachers, often working without pay, held classes in their homes, Oliver said. "That's why I love working with the teachers."
"We're in free Kosovo and the children are going to the schools their fathers built for them," said Azgm Muja, director of the school in Bajgora, Mitrovica, told the delegation.
Brikena Vlakaj, 20-year-old translator for the delegation, was in a class of 40 who were home schooled for all four years of high school. "We sat on the floor; no furniture, no desks. The (Serb) police came in our classes. Some were taken out and beaten. It was really hard," Vlakaj said.
For Oliver, the value of the kits goes beyond pencils and paper. "The school kits say, 'We care about you. We care about your education.' This is a symbol of our appreciation of their education," she said. "I've never seen such joy on children's faces. It was really moving for me."
Source: United Methodist News Service. Mike DuBose is a photojournalist for United Methodist News Service.