History of our School

 

In September 1999,  Donald Nelson and his co-workers began working in Bathore. Prior to
this they had been providing relief supplies to several thousand Kosovar refugees living with Albanian families in the Tirana area.

Arriving in Bathore they found an area suffering with severe social and economic problems.  Donald and his co-workers found many children in the streets without any chance to attend school.They learned that this condition is because there is only one government school in the area.  After consulting with the local Elder (elected representative of the locality), they made plans to open a much needed kindergarten. A building was selected in August 2000, and as soon as they started registration, the available places were filled up (on the first day of registration) and forty more children were placed on the waiting list.

Vjollca Milloshi calls the names of the entering students on October 2, 2000.	In January 2001, work was completed on an addition to the school building and another 40 children were able to attend. In March 2001 a team from the European Union's monitoring commission visited the school. Representatives of several international ngos also visited the kindergarten. As graduates of the Sunrise kindergarten began to attend the local primary school, they performed exceptionally well and the school acquired a reputation for academic excellence. In the summer of 2001, teachers from the local primary school visited the sunrise school and directly enrolled the most promising students for the coming autumn session. By January 2002, one of the former Sunrise pupils ranked number 1 in her class at the Bathore primary school.
	In May 2002 the kindergarten moved to a new building with three classrooms.
	In November, 2006 a delegation from AMURT Italy visited our school and subsequently raised significant funds for the project.
	In May 2008 custom-built playground equipment was installed at the kindergarten.
	At the beginning of 2014 we are now working to purchase a new building for the continuation of the school. You can help make this a reality by visiting our support page.