CARE and Kosovo
CARE had been working in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since 1993, helping displaced Serb refugees from Bosnia, and in Kosovo since 1998, implementing shelter provision and repair, agricultural rehabilitation, and mine-awareness training and demining. CARE was forced to suspend operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in Kosovo province itself in March as a result of the conflict.
Building on its existing presence in the Balkans, however, CARE launched an immediate emergency response in the spring of 1999 to help the nearly 1 million people displaced from Kosovo as a result of the fighting. Eventually CARE assumed management of eight refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia housing more than 100,000 refugees. Along with providing for people's basic needs, CARE staff sought to replicate normal life within the camps as much as possible. Schools were opened, mother and child centers set up, playgrounds built, sports and theater activities organized. These activities all sought to minimize the disruption caused to peoples lives by their status as refugees.
June 10, 1999 saw the end of the NATO air strikes and the entrance of NATO forces into Kosovo to secure the peace. CARE re-entered Kosovo three days after the first NATO troops and resumed operations. Shortly after, thousands of Kosovars began streaming back across the borders, eager to get home and start rebuilding their lives. Refugees returning to Kosovo found a land ravaged by conflict. Tens of thousands of homes in the region were either destroyed or significantly damaged during the conflict. Roads, bridges, communications systems and other major aspects of the region's infrastructure also were damaged along with schools, hospitals and other health centers. Some 40,000 land mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO), scattered across Kosovo, continue to threaten the safety all Kosovars. CARE launched a massive emergency response, to deal with the most urgent and basic human needs: shelter, food, warmth and safety.
One year later, CARE is in charge of one of the largest emergency relief and rehabilitation programs in Kosovo, covering 21 out of 29 municipalities. Activities include the distribution of food and other relief items, shelter provision, housing reconstruction, agricultural rehabilitation, mine awareness training and demining, reproductive health training, a mobile gynecological clinic, psychosocial training and support for schoolteachers.
Shelter:
Since July 1999, CARE has undertaken 12 major shelter projects in 14 municipalities throughout the province, including the distribution of more than 11,000 shelter kits (benefiting some 80,000 people) in the areas of Mitrovica, Ferizaj, Podujevo and Pristina. CARE also is helping to rebuild nearly 1,000 roofs throughout Ferizaj (Urosevac), Glogovac, Mitrovica and Vuciturn by providing construction materials and technical assistance. In Ferizaj and Kacanik, CARE has trained 20 ex-combatants as carpenters who are now lending their assistance rebuilding roofs for the more vulnerable households who are unable to build their own. With new funding, CARE has recently begun additional roofing projects in the severely damaged villages of Suvareka, Doberdelane and Shiroke. CARE provided emergency winter shelter for some 1, 500 people by rehabilitating 10 buildings throughout Mitrovica to be used as collective centers.
Food and Non-Food Distribution:
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| Photo by Alix de Mauny. 4-year old Ali Gurri waits to
receive some of his family's monthly food supplies: 50 cans of fish, 48
cans of meat, 4 pots of margarine and 2 kilos of milk powder. Ali has also
received toys and pencils from CARE, and warm winter clothes.
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CARE is the main food and non-food supplier in the Ferizaj and Kacanik area where it is providing assistance to more than 52,000 people. In February, CARE expanded its distributions to include the Gjilan area, bringing the total number of people receiving food from CARE to nearly 130,000. Using more than a dozen trucks, CARE delivers food from the World Food Program and other relief supplies provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to community distribution points. The local Mother Theresa Society is handling the actual allocation of food to beneficiaries. These allocations are recorded on a card issued to each household. CARE is charged with monitoring food allocations -- a monitoring team interviews 5 percent of each village's population to verify that the correct amounts of food and non-food items are reaching those in need. CARE has distributed about 80,000 blankets, 40,000 mattresses, 11,000 plastic sheets, 1,000 stoves and some 6,500 kitchen sets.
Firewood Distribution:
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| Firewood is distributed to central collection points, where villagers gather to collect their share. Photos by Peter Stevenson.
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In August, CARE conducted an emergency heating assessment to determine needs and recommend solutions. Kosovars are traditionally dependent on wood and coal to heat their homes during the winter. CARE determined that a massive wood distribution program was necessary to prepare for the harsh Balkan winter months, as few people had been able to stockpile enough wood due to the conflict. In addition, many families who traditionally gather wood from the forests were unable to do so because of the threat of mines and unexploded bombs. Working with the Mother Theresa Society, CARE has distributed more than 3 million cubic feet of wood to help 35,000 vulnerable households throughout Kosovo keep warm this winter.
Mine Action and Awareness:
Kosovo now is considered the second most heavily mined region in the world after Angola. Of the 425 identified mine fields throughout the province, 220 are in CARE's area of responsibility. In addition, the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) notes that Ferizaj is the most heavily booby-trapped section of Kosovo. Private U.S. donor support enabled CARE to respond immediately to the land mine problem facing returning refugees and residents in Kosovo. Private funds financed the first two months of the program before CARE secured bilateral institutional funding. This was an extremely critical period when the flow of refugees returning to their homes in Kosovo was at its peak. CARE's land mine activities are designed to minimize the mine/UXO threat through a two-part program: mine action development, including land mine removal, and community mine awareness. CARE's strategy is to integrate these activities into shelter and agriculture projects. To carry out this program, CARE has partnered with the Zimbabwe-based firm, Mine-Tech. Mine-Tech has technical expertise and a proven track record in clearing mines in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Mine-Tech currently has four teams of deminers with 11 trained mine detection dogs working with CARE in Kosovo. Members of Mine-Tech's staff accompany CARE shelter and agriculture teams on assessments of new areas in order to check for land mines and UXO. Since the July 17, Mine-Tech has cleared 10,900 houses, 15 schools, seven water pipelines and a recreation area. In total, some 236,227 square yards have been checked, marked and cleared, and 346 mines and 103 unexploded ordnance found. In addition, CARE and Mine-Tech were asked by UNICEF and UNHCR to conduct mine awareness training for all United Nations and nongovernmental organization (NGO) staff in Pristina, and now hold regular sessions. Mine-Tech staff also provide mine awareness training to the recently formed Kosovo Police Service. In addition, Mine-Tech has played a vital role in helping to clear the main power line from Macedonia. The demining of the power line will allow Kosovo to import 200 megawatts of electricity from Macedonia, which will make up one-third of the total power usage in Kosovo. This will have a significant impact on people living in urban areas, where most households rely on electricity for heating purposes.
Looking to the Future: Laying the Basis for Sustained Recovery
The provision of emergency relief, however important, is only half the story of CARE's involvement Kosovo. Now that the winter is coming to an end, and some semblance of normality has returned to people's lives, CARE has embarked on the vital task of helping Kosovars to rebuild their province, and lay the basis for sustainable development.
Agricultural Rehabilitation:
A major task is to help the people of Kosovo produce enough to feed themselves, without the need for food aid. In the Ferizaj region, corn and wheat are the dominant crops, and are grown for consumption and local sale. Because many farmers were not able to plant during the war last spring, little wheat was harvested in 1999. In early August last year, six CARE teams began conducting surveys of nearly 2,200 farm families (approximately 15,500 people) whose homes were significantly damaged and who are dependent on crops for income and food. Between September 1999 and February 2000, CARE distributed wheat seed and fertilizer to some 5,500 households, livestock feed to 3,400 households and spare tractor parts to more than 700 households. CARE currently is carrying out a spring agricultural rehabilitation program in Lipjan, Urosevac, Kacanik, Stimlje and Viti, providing vital agricultural inputs to more than 10,000 households. Of these, more than 2,000 are minority households, with limited access to markets. In addition, more than 1,000 households are receiving spare parts for tractors.
Psychosocial Training:
Recovery is not just about physical rebuilding; it's also a psychological process. CARE launched an extensive psychosocial training and support program for teachers in recognition of the serious need many Kosovar children have for psychological support following the civil conflict. The program is an extension of psychosocial projects operated by CARE in the Cegrane refugee camp in Macedonia. The program has already provided training to 102 primary school teachers from 32 schools in the Ferizaj region to enable them to recognize and address signs of trauma -- as well as learning disabilities and behavioral problems -- in children. In March 2000, the program expanded to two more regions, and is providing training to a further 200 primary school teachers. The project aims to empower teachers by giving them additional knowledge and tools.
Health:
Good health care is a vital component of promoting recovery and needs to be part of a long-term strategy for development. CARE is currently implementing two health projects in Kosovo: a reproductive health training project and a mobile gynecological clinic.
The Reproductive Health Training Program is a comprehensive 5-day training program for 1,400 Kosovar health workers, covering four major topics: safe motherhood, family planning (known as "Healthy Families"), sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, and sexual and gender-based violence. The program began with a two-week intensive "training of trainers" session in November 1999, after which the training of health workers began. The program is helping to spread knowledge about reproductive health issues at the primary health care level, thus increasing women's access to comprehensive reproductive health care. As of March 2000, 263 health workers had received training.
Mobile Gynecological Clinic:
CARE is operating a mobile gynecological clinic throughout six rural villages in the Mitrovica area, providing vital gynecological and pediatric services to thousands of women and children. Patients benefit from a number of different services including ultrasounds, PAP tests and pre- and post-natal care. A pediatric component provides basic pediatric services to children and adolescents up to age 18. Since the start of the clinic, 8,371 pediatric examinations have been carried out on children from the age of birth to 18 years old. The clinic team also provides education for women on topics such as hygiene, breast-feeding and child and maternal nutrition, and distributes drugs, toys, clothes and baby hygienic packs. The clinic staff also have received training in trauma counseling as many women and children suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms.
Working Hand-in -Hand with Local Institutions
One of the greatest challenges that CARE faces is making sure that the organization's work is sustainable, and in tune with local customs and needs. For this reason, CARE works as much as possible with local partners. The Mother Teresa Society, a local NGO, proved an invaluable partner for CARE's emergency work, helping both to identify beneficiaries and to carry out distributions. For the psychosocial project, CARE works closely with the local Institute of Pedagogy, both to identify and train local trainers, and to provide follow-up support and mentoring to the training workshops. Both of the health projects are conducted with the cooperation and active involvement of the Institute of Health. Such cooperation not only helps CARE to reach the right people, but also means that ultimately, local people will be able to provide such services without the need for international assistance.