Albania
The problem
In Albania about 10% of children are affected by neuropsychiatric pathologies and 90% of them do not receive any kind of assistance or medical treatment. Most of them live in total isolation, hidden behind the walls of their homes, while many others are secluded in public mental asylums, with no contacts with the outside world.
A survey conducted in 2002 (Albania’s Living Standards Measurement Survey) found out that 14% of Albanian children under age 5 suffers from malnutrition. Malnutrition is a direct consequence of poverty and is proved to be one of the main causes of neuropsychiatric illnesses.
Berat is a town located in the southern-central area of Albania. Its population is about 45,500. In Berat there exists a residential institution, a mental asylum, where 50 children and adolescents live in unimaginable conditions, in total lack of hygiene, with no medical treatment available, where they are regularly victims of violence and abuses.
The high incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders in the children of Berat is also related to a prolonged exposure to lead poisoning. Children living close to Berat battery factory have a mean blood lead level of 43.4 ug/dl, three times more than comparable children of similar age living at a distance greater than 2 km from the plant (Tabaku A. Bizgha, V. Rahlenbeck, Biological monitoring of lead exposure in high risk groups in Berat, Albania, Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 1998).
CITTADINANZA’s answer
Since 2002 Cittadinanza has been supporting and managing, in cooperation with its trustworthy Albanian partner ‘Shen Asti Foundation’, a Day Centre for children with disabilities in Berat.
The centre originally welcomed young patients from Berat mental asylum, offering them the possibility to receive medical assistance and rehabilitative treatment and to experience a daily life different and far from the violence and the abuses they got used to in the asylum. Then, the centre extended its activities to children from families who were keeping them isolated and secluded behind their homes’ walls due to sense of shame towards the community.
In 2007 the project entered a new three-years phase (2007-2010), which aims at strenghtening the above mentioned activities while bearing in mind the utmost importance of including children suffering from neuropsychiatric pathologies (like autism, mental retardment, infantil psychosis, encephalitis) both in the society and in the school system and of promoting their rights as stated in the 2007 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (http://untreaty.un.org/English/notpubl/IV_15_english.pdf).
In particular the project foresees:
• to build a new suitable centre, which will host about 20/30 children on a rotational basis;
• to provide outpatient specialized rehabilitative services also to those children who are not enrolled in the daily activities of the centre;
• to enhance the role of families and of the whole community (social/health workers, teachers, local authorities, etc.) through focused awareness campaigns and ad hoc initiatives;
• to establish a permanent link between the centre and the local education system.
Direct beneficiaries of the proposed intervention will be 20/30 children from 3 to 10 years old, living in Berat town and surrounding areas. Indirect beneficiaries will be the families of the targeted children, other families of children not enrolled in the daily activities of the centre, caregivers (particularly teachers and social assistants), educators and the local community as a whole.
