My last call for funding help . . . from Albania at least

As a generally "do-gooder" type, I feel like I am always asking for money from my friends and family. Help me with this project! Support this great organization! The only thing that makes me feel better about this is that when my other do-gooder friends ask, I usually try my best to help them out with their causes (I haven't much for the past two years . . . it is a bit hard when living on $200 a month, but I promise to start giving again when I get home . . .).

Anyway, I have one last call for help before I leave Albania. I have been working for the past year with a group of kids called Outdoor Ambassadors. Last summer I took 6 kids from Peshkopi to a camp in the south of the country for a week. At that camp, the idea came up to try to send some of the best kids from all around the country to a program in the states. Outdoor Ambassadors works with about 200 youth spread throughout the country and a lucky eight of these kids have been selected to attend camp at the Wolf-Ridge Environmental Learning Center in northern Minnesota and to participate in two weeks of home-stays with American families. These youth are the leaders of a new movement toward a cleaner and more environmentally friendly Albania. One of my kids (17 year old Fatjon) was selected along with 7 other students from 4 cities. Right now, Albania is considered by the EU to be the most polluted country in Europe. The young people in Albania have never seen a landscape free of plastic bags, bottles, pop cans, and other garbage. The drinking water is severely toxic due to the highly polluted rivers, lakes, and seas. As the infrastructure in Albania slowly develops, the means to take care of these problems begin to appear, but cannot be utilized until the mentality surrounding these issues also begins to change. It was only thirty to forty years ago that America was dealing with some of these very same issues and showing these students one of our most beautiful national forests, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, will give them a great vision of how the most protected areas in nature can be preserved and protected.

We had a great idea- send 8 great kids to a once in a lifetime experience in America, now we just needed to get it paid for. These types of projects can be really difficult to get off the ground since the cost is so high, but we looked at many different funding sources and decided that if we all worked together (the 8 kids, and volunteers from all around the country) that we could get it done. We found a great camp in Minnesota and with the help of some Minnesotan PCVs found families to host the kids before and after the camp. Then we applied to the US Embassy here in Albania for the airfare. They like to encourage cultural exchange between the two countries and they were happy to help, now we just needed the camp tuition. This is where you come in . . .

More about our project and instructions for donating can be found at:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=304-017

The kids are working their butts off doing local fundraising, but we still have a long way to go. Any little bit helps! Thank you for your support over the past two years and I promise that this is the last time I will ask for money from Albania . . . until I get a job back in America with some other do-gooder type group . . .