EDUCATION AND JOB PLACEMENT FOR FOUR YOUNG PEOPLE IN KOSOVO

Kosovo is a country with a complex history. Devastated by a protracted war, even today, despite more than twenty years having passed, it faces numerous economic and social challenges.

Kosovo is one of the youngest countries in Europe, with more than half the population under the age of 25. Many young men and women experience extremely frustrating conditions: they have limited job opportunities, and university education is considered almost useless for achieving a satisfying job.

Wide-ranging phenomena such as cronyism and corruption aggravate the situation. The unemployment rate in 2021 was estimated at 26%, with a very high incidence among young people (source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation), and many minors attempt to reach European Union countries illegally, fueling organized crime.

The situation for women in Kosovo is also problematic, especially in rural areas. Although legislation guarantees equal rights and freedoms, women are often victims of abuse and, when they seek justice, they face stigmatization from their families and society.

The critical issues affecting them include health, protection from violence, often experienced within the family, and, most significantly, employment: approximately 80% of women are unemployed. In many cases, this is also due to a patriarchal mentality that seeks to continue relegating women to the domestic sphere, denying them any form of emancipation.

Investing in young people to create a future: the Valter Baldaccini Foundation's socio-educational project

This is the context in which the Leskoc House fits in, an organization active in the area since the immediate post-war period and managed by Caritas Umbria.

Coordinated by Rinaldo Marion and Francesca Mosca, the Home welcomes boys, girls, and adolescents from families experiencing severe marginalization and social hardship due to extreme poverty, mental health issues, prostitution, and experiences of incarceration.

Their life journey is even more challenging—at school, in finding a job, in relationships. For this reason, some of them, the most vulnerable and facing the most difficult times, are offered work placements in the protected environment of the Home or the adjacent cooperative that manages the land, farm, dairy, and bakery.

Since 2022, the Valter Baldaccini Foundation, in collaboration with the Leskoc House and the local NGO Shoqata Carita Umbria, has been implementing a socio-educational and social inclusion project. The project aims to support young people on a path to personal and social fulfillment through training and employment. This project aims to help them achieve full personal dignity and a social role as active and responsible participants, and to create concrete opportunities that allow them to remain in their home country and commit to its development.

The young people involved in the project

Since the project began, the young people involved in these training and inclusion programs have been:

• Dardana was welcomed into the Leskoc House, along with her sister and brother, when she was very young. Her mother had died, and her father was suffering from serious health problems. Thanks to a scholarship provided by the Valter Foundation, she studied History at the University of Pristina for a year, then decided to change her major to study Social Sciences, which she is still pursuing with passion.
• Ariana, Dardana's sister, studied Sports Science for a year, but then realized that university wasn't the path she wanted to pursue. Today, she works and lives in Pristina with her sister.
• Dorentina is the third of five siblings who were taken in in 2007 because they were living in a state of complete abandonment. For a year, she benefited from training and job placement in the cooperative's dairy farm.
• Valentina belongs to one of the poorest families in the area. She was 10 when she was first welcomed into the Home, along with an older sister. Valentina cares for her parents and is a young woman trying to build a future for herself, but to be independent, she needs a job. For this reason, she was offered a job within the shelter, helping with the children, in the kitchen, and in the laundry and ironing room.
• Muhamet, who has always been homeless, has never attended school, and was hired for a year to manage the Home's cattle farm.
• Hasimet is 21 years old and was 5 when he was welcomed into the Home, having lost his mother and an elderly and ill father. Hasimet has faced many difficulties attending school. However, today he could begin a career path in the cooperative's bakery. 
• Laura, for over a year, supported the children at the Home, helping with homework and organizing and managing the various activities carried out with the young guests. She then decided to enroll in a design and furnishing course, and Diana took her place for a few months, and then, at the end of 2025, Valerina.

Supporting the needs of the Leskoc House since 2016

Since 2016, the Valter Baldaccini Foundation has been developing socio-educational projects that offer concrete opportunities for social empowerment, together with the Leskoc House and the NGO Shoqata.

• in 2016, the socio-educational project Development and job training in Kosovo was launched with a small herd of ten dairy cows, a milking machine and a pasteurizer, essential for starting up milk production and sales;
• in 2019 a new stable was built and the volunteers from the Valter Baldaccini Foundation participated in a volunteer experience;
• in 2020 the pandemic forced us to review a new project designed for women to make up for the house’s economic difficulties; in fact, thanks to the Foundation's contribution, twenty new calves were purchased;
• in 2021 a training and work project dedicated to women was carried out with the aim of giving a small group of women an important opportunity for redemption, one of them was permanently employed by the cooperative's dairy;
• Starting in 2022, the Valter Baldaccini Foundation has chosen to focus its attention on the education and training of the boys and girls raised at the Leskoc Home, to enable them to have a better future;
• In 2024 and 2025, the Foundation is organizing two corporate volunteer trips to Kosovo;
• Starting in 2026, the Foundation intends to expand its support even further, helping the children it hosts and supporting the activities that are part of our daily lives.

Photo credit: Francesca Boccabella