Poverty puts families in prison

I met *Margarita in the poorest neighbourhood of Malecaj, a remote village of Lezha, where the paved road didn’t make it, even this electoral year. In the beginning, she tried to escape. She was ashamed to be seen in that state of poverty. She hid while I talked with her mother, *Maria, in the adjacent room.

After talking with her mother and taking countless snapshots to document the desperate poverty of this family, we met Margarita. She was standing in one of the compartments of the building that could be called anything but a house.

She is 17 years old. She is very pretty and her family is very poor. Her eyebrows and her toenails are manicured and painted black. Her feet are easy to see as she is barefoot. Her younger sister also runs barefoot with the other children all over the village, smiling,; her clothes full of colours and flowers, as if her life were joyful.

But, there’s nothing happy in Margarita’s life. On her face, the boredom and tiredness of her poverty have chiselled their marks. Her eyes are reveal her pain.

A little less ashamed, together with her mother, they allow me to photograph her naked feet, on the earthen floor of the building. There is no pavement in this part of the house, which serves as a kitchen and a cellar. The other rooms are covered with distinctive grey tiles that were often used during communism.

Margarita spends her time doing nearly nothing, except when she helps her mother in the fields of her fellow villagers. “It’s not that they are rich, but they call me only because they are good people and want to help us,” says Maria, of the other farmers who give her work to do.

Besides working the land of others, the 17-year-old also does her chores, but it is evident that there’s not much to do. The family of four lives survives by selling a little sage, working occasionally in fields of their fellow villagers’ houses, and on the $30 USD welfare allowance.

Like other villagers, they don’t have drinking water. They are forced to buy it from a van that comes from Lezha city. After they set aside money for water, flour and some other main staples, very little is left for detergents. The dishes, clothes and couches are not washed often. Flies are everywhere.


As if all of this wasn’t enough, the history of the building where Margarita sadly passes her days, is just as miserable: This Malecaj neighbourhood is the former Torovica prison, where many political prisoners served their sentences. Today, 75 families, all of them as poor as Marias’ (most of whom who have come from rural areas) have lived here at least 10 years.

Hundreds of people wake up every morning, go to work (when they can find work), raise their families, bear children and sleep in the former Torovica prison.


The area of the former prison where Margarita’s family is housed once served as the room where prisoners met their relatives. In the windows you can still see thick iron bars forming small squares.

Beyond the bars, the scenery is spectacular. During the summer, the sun shines on the lush field and hills in front. It is hard to believe that behind you, a woman and three children live in misery and often go hungry, as they have for many years now.

The fact that Margarita has already spent more than half of her life living in a prison has affected her hopes for a better future, making it difficult, if not impossible, for her believe her future will be a better one.


When her mother was her age, she came to Malecaj (from a remote part of Rubik), with her parents other relatives, all of whom were full of dreams. They had heard wonderful things about this corner of Lezha: that it is full of green and plentiful fields.

“It used to be truly fertile, as long as the irrigation and drainage system was functioning,” remembers Xhemal, a local farmer from Malecaj, who lives on the other side of the village — the rich part.

“There were at least six excavators every day in the fields, to clear any possible blockages of canals because Torovica plain, part of which is Malecaj, was in danger of flooding. After communism fell, [the] excavators left. Unfortunately, the plain began to flood all the time. Today, it is almost a marsh. Now, it produces very little,” he adds.

Before the plains flooded, Maria’s parents had built a house and things were going well. They received some land from the land distribution, they increased their livestock.

Maria got married, but her husband had neither land nor a house. Two daughters and one boy were born and even with all the help from her relatives, Maria’s family’s poverty increased more and more.

Eventually the economic situation of the fellow villagers started to decrease and together with them the opportunities of her young husband to be employed. Unemployment soon resulted in alcohol abuse and soon after in violence.

In one of the many cases where Maria was beaten by her husband, she ended up in the hospital in very severe condition—and with 25 stitches in her head.

“He was a good man, especially for friends,” remembers Maria. “But, he drank too much, and would beat me up too often.” Now divorced, he lives far from the family and sees the children only occasionally.

Maria is raising their three children alone: unpainted walls, couches and beds sunken in the middle, a few small household appliances that barely work, and an empty food pantry show how hard it is for the 42-year-old to provide for the everyday needs of her children. And, she is not alone: 74 other families have more-or-less the same life.

A prison for the village

In the middle of the village, on the ground, the last sage harvest is drying. The villagers tell us that until few years ago they were able to provide a better living for their families from the sage than today. But, just like the land, even the sage is betraying them: there’s always less and less.

In fact, the betrayal is on both sides. They admit that they have picked sage carelessly, sometimes not fully blooming, without leaving the medicinal plant to strengthen and multiply. “Now you can pick sage only three days out of the whole year,” says Xhemal.

“It is really hard for us,” says Preng Sherri, 71, with his face propped on his cane. He looks at the children playing and shakes his hands. “At least let there be something done for them.” But, there is no work. The fields don’t produce like they used to because they became salty. And beside this, almost none of these families have an acre of land. When they got here, land distribution had finished. The land they own is in mountainous villages where they came down from. But to them it is unthinkable to go back.

The children continue to play, full of joy, and can hardly imagine that besides everyday physical poverty, they are also threatened by mental poverty. The village school, which is located “beyond, in the rich part” has a leaky roof and barely standing benches. The road to go to school from the ex-prison neighbourhood often floods when it rains and it becomes impassable.

“You can go only by boat, but few of us have one. Many children can’t go to school,” the villagers say.

Youth in action

It was the deteriorating condition of school and the flooding road, that inspired a group of 17-year-olds, from neighbouring villages and Lezha to undertake a not-so-easy project: of repairing the school and raising the road level (to avoid flooding), to help some of the poorest families of Malecaj be able to at least get an education and have a chance for a better future.

The peer group is called “VizioniRinor” (Youth Vision) and so far has 15 teenage members. It is part of World Vision in Albania & Kosovo. Their enthusiasm is contagious, but they didn’t leave it at that.

“Everything was their idea. They are organising meetings with the commune to see what the local government can offer to improve things in Malecaj and then what they can do as a group. They will organise a big concert in Lezha, an exhibition with their artistic works and are looking for various donors. They are full of ideas and we are supporting them,” says Besmira Lekaj, head of World Vsion’s sponsorship programme for Lezha ADP.

The organization has been one of the few friends of Malecaj’s villagers. This March 20, 2013 women from this community also profited from free breast cancer medical visits and medicines. Free optometry visits were also provided to the children of the village as well as many plays and fun activities.

In the case of Margarita’s family, World Vision supported the children while their parents were in the process of legally divorcing by including them in several activities.World Vision also made it possible for Margarita’s brother return to school and supplied him with the needed materials. Later, he became member of Child Rights group, founded from the organisation.

The group of teenagers creating change for Malecaj have been being prepared for years by World Vision and have been trained to raise their voices in the face of injustice,to help those in need; people like Maria, Margarita and Preng Sherri.


Malecaj is not their first project. Aside from other projects, Lezha inhabitants have seen this dance to simple choreography in the city square, with banners in hands against child violence.

“[When] first, we heard of Malecaj, its poverty, flooding, and the ruined school from our parents and World Vision’s office. We were deeply touched. After going there and seeing the situation, we immediately thought to do something,” Doris Prendi from Lezha says.

While the big plans are progressing at a slower pace, youth visit in families the ex-prison neighbourhood, every other week. They come by bus and bring balls in their hands, ready to play for some hours with the children, right there in the square of the neighbourhood. Some talk with boys and girls, like Margarita, to take them out of the village, at least spiritually, to involve them in beautiful projects, which when become a reality and truly make the world a little better.

Meanwhile, preparations for the physical repair of Malecaj continue feverishly. “In all of this, we asked help of the local government because school is something public, a responsibility of this government. Commune needs to do something and we are sharing what it can do and what we can do,” they say confidently.

“[The school] needs to be rebuilt as soon as possible. It is the basis of education of all the area inhabitants, it is the future,” explains Gladiola Visha, one of the group’s members.

Concert, media, video – a new way of protest

Every day, youth are meeting institutions, organization, and different businesses. “We are also recording a video about Malecaj which then will circulate in social media. We want people to see and to understand the situation, how children live, how they are left without a school.We want people to support us, we can’t do this alone,” they say.

Along with the video, the group continues to create artistic works with which it will open an exhibition. “We invite all artists and musical groups to be a part of this concert. This is not just a simple concert. With the money collected from it, we will change people’s lives and tens of children may have a normal school, a normal road in which they can go there,” says one participant.

Meanwhile, the artist’s list is filling up. One of the musical groups that will sing for Malecaj is Copyleft. United around a year ago, these rockers are known for their strong stance toward social problems and use their music as a form of protest.

The group’s vocalist, Vitmar Basha, has also been working with the group and teaching them youth how to organize a benefit concert and to find the right donors. “I was very impressed by their initiative and I [explained] to help them with what I know and I have experimented with events organization. I hope their work will be rewarded in showing up of many of people, donors’ support and above all, showing up of fellow musicians. It is a great way to become part of the voice that comes from the villages in need, with extreme poverty like this neighbourhood of Malecaj. I hope the concert, even though it’s only few hours, will be a ray of light for these people as well as it will be an encouragement for Lezha’s youth,” Basha says.