The Children

 

The Sunrise School is located in Bathore, a squatter community 12 km from Tirana. Bathore was established in the 1990s following the collapse of the communist system. Especially hard hit by the social and economic changes of the 1990s were people in Albania’s northern provinces. 30,000 emigrants from the north came to settle on a tract of land which is now the Bathore community. This community suffered from a lack of infrastructure (roads, power and water) and from a lack of social services . Although conditions have improved greatly in the past nine years,  unemployment is still high (reaching 50%).The Sunrise School is located in Bathore’s Sector 6, the poorest part of this settlement. In this sector 100 families still live in the converted cattle sheds which were part of the collective farm which covered Bathore prior to the arrival of the present inhabitants. The children in the school come from both Christian and Muslim families.

 

Below are images of the some of our children: