Interview no. 4: Story no. 2

Story no. 2

Skopje 1999, news hit that there is a huge number of Kosovo citizens at the Kosovo-Macedonia border who await entrance to our country. Among all these people were many women, some of whom pregnant, carrying small children and elderly people.

We immediately checked in and we went to the border to help these people by bringing them food, water and bedspreads. But we could not help with entrance to the country because it was the responsibility of the state.

In three camps. One of which in Stenkovec, where I immediately went and because of our authority and activity I managed to extract several women and then connect them with the international red cross, and later help them reconnect and extract their families too.

One of them was Betty, who after exiting the camp immediately joined the activities of our organization. Together we worked to help other people in the camps through a project named “An Open Door” . Many activists were involved in this project and workshops were held on psychosocial support for women from Kosovo who made it to Skopje and were accommodated in with family and friends.

Betty was one of the refugees to which we lent a hand, we pulled her out of the camp and she along with us continued to help her fellow countrymen from Kosovo. Young people from Kosovo were involved in camps for identifying people accommodated in camps.

After some time and the settlement of the situation in Kosovo, Betty returned to her family and everyone else in Kosovo. With the help of the acquired knowledge from the workshops in Macedonia, she has formed her own organization under the same name “An Open Door” and has been working successfully with marginalized women, refugees..etc.

Thus, the the helping hand we lent her, the involvement in the activities helped her succeed and continue to work successfully in his country.