Albanian Schools Project

The year long mission came to fruition on Monday 5th September, 1993 when the first of three trips to southern Albania by Astley Rotarians took place.

The project began when a club member hosted Anna Giokas, one of 90 Albanian children visiting the North West in 1993 in a trip organised by the Wigan Tourism Association.

During the visit it was discovered that the young girl's village school in Sofratike, southern Albania, had been almost totally destroyed during the Albanian revolution leaving only a bare shell without any furniture, windows or toilets.

The International Committee of the Rotary Club of Astley resolved to rectify the situation, raising the items needed to equip the school.

"We set ourselves the task of helping to equip the school and raise enough money to get the material to Albania," says Peter Rowlinson, the then Club President.

With the full participation of the club's 31 members, in a few months over £7000 had been collected, as well as more than 100 desks and chairs, gym equipment, a photocopier, calculators and stationery.

The then vice-president George Cowburn and International Chairman Gordon Burrows set off on Monday 5th September, 1993, where they met up with Rotarians from northern Greece and representatives from the Albanian village.

This advance party set about buying any necessary building materials needed to start rebuilding the school.

"Everything seemed to be running smoothly for the expedition until a last minute hitch on the Albania frontier," explains Peter Rowlinson.

"When George and Gordon arrived they discovered that the border between Greece and Albania had been shut to commercial traffic.

"But they sorted things out and the equipment soon arrived in the village."

A week later, after these problems had been resolved, a third member, David Statham, accompanied the lorry carrying the 12 tons of equipment raised by the Astley Rotarians.

At the same time, a fourth Astley Rotarian, Ken Bates, with whose family the young Albanain girl Anna had stayed in Astley, travelled to northern Greece to make further contact with the Albanians.

The lorry full of equipment arrived in Albania on the 19th of  September 1993.

"We left much of the equipment there, and some of it was distributed to other schools in the region," says Peter Rowlinson.

"We also used some of the money we collected to pay for building materials so that the school could be restored to a suitable condition."

Thanks to the hard work and generous spirit of a group of Rotarians thousands of miles away, the children of Sofratike now have their village school back.