In addition to projects in India and Germany, Mix for Kids is now also active in Albania. Together with its project partner, Don Bosco Mondo e.V., the non-profit organization is helping 25 young people to attend school for one year, and three of them even for at least three years. The girls and boys from rural mountain regions in Albania are scholarships recipients for the Don Bosco Center in Shkodra in northwestern Albania. Several additional families who could not afford to send their children to school will receive financial support as well. In addition, Mix for Kids will pay for the urgently needed repair of the school’s van.

Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe: around 60 percent of the population live below the poverty line. There is a lack of schools in rural areas and especially in mountain regions. Many families have moved to the bigger cities to improve their lives, though often without actually being able to escape their precarious situation. Consequently, many children and adolescents cannot go to school as they have to help at home and with the harvest to support their families.

At the Don Bosco Center in Shkodra, the country’s fifth-largest city with 112,000 inhabitants, sisters of the Don Bosco order have been running a preschool, elementary school and secondary school since 1992. The center offers the young people supported by Mix for Kids high-quality education, as well as the opportunity to take part in sport programs and leisure activities.