Edinburgh direct aid

[http://www.edinburghdirectaid.orgEdinburgh Direct Aid] is a charity founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 1992, with the stated aims
*to bring humanitarian aid to all those in the Balkans who suffered as a result of the war, especially the "ethnic cleansing" which drove so many from their homes, sometimes to their death or injury, always into destitution.
*to deliver aid in person to those in need, to ensure that the aid got to those for whom it was meant, and to demonstrate support and commitment by personal presence.
*to use all donations to buy essentials such as medical goods & food, and to keep its convoys rolling, avoiding paid staff¨ and paid advertisements.

Convoys

The first convoy was a Volvo car with a 1 -ton trailer and a camper van carrying blankets and clothes for refugee camps near Zagreb and some drugs requested by a Zagreb hospital. It was realised then that although refugees in Croatia needed help, the worst need was in Bosnia, so from then on that’s where EDA went.

From Sept. 1992 to Sept. 1996 EDA took 33 different groups of volunteers from Edinburgh to former Yugoslavia, delivering over 2000 tons of aid in hundreds of separate sorties into Bosnia.

Two trucks - four trucks - six trucks - eight trucks

By mid '93 the convoys routinely comprised two or three 7.5 and one or two 17 ton vans - given outright or loaned indefinitely (notably a 17 ton furniture van from [http://www.haltran.com/ Halley Transport] ), lacking in mod cons but kept going by EDA’s devoted volunteer mechanics, over the roughest of Bosnian roads, the worst of the Bosnian winters and the long haul over Germany’s motorways. "Big Yin", our faithful 17 ton Bedford, was retired forcibly when hit by Serb mortars on Mount Igman in May 95. The Halley truck and “Tango”, a 17 ton gift of [http://www.bass.com/Bass the Brewers] were eventually given to Stevenson College, Edinburgh for their students to work on (they often service EDA vehicles). Replacements included vehicles donated by Land Rover Finance. Leyland DAF, Lex Transfleet, EDA South Coast and Heriot School: this eventually gave EDA a somewhat more modern fleet of five 13-17 ton trucks, two 7.5 tonners and a Land Rover. In May 1995, Convoy 29 saw 13 EDA vehicles drive aid from Split to Sarajevo.

Aid Destinations

Each convoy delivered its initial load from Edinburgh, then took whatever loads needed shifting for other aid organisations e.g. Feed The Children, Christian Aid,The Soros Foundation from Croatia into Bosnia. Delivery targets were selected on advice of UNHCR, of Bosnian Government representatives, and of British Army liaison officers.

Aid workers as targets

Despite UNPROFOR escorts in sensitive areas, EDA and other aid workers were fired on. Christine Witcutt was killed by a sniper when leaving Sarajevo in July 1993 [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4DB163FF935A35754C0A965958260 Serbs and Croats Attack Besieged Bosnian Town - New York Times ] ] In the summer of 1994 Edinburgh Direct Aid convoys took advantage of General Rose’s newly opened “Blue Route” over the airport, which made it possible to reach Sarajevo over Mount Igman without crossing Serb lines - but not without crossing their gun sights. From then until the opening of the main road after the Dayton agreement, EDA ran regular convoys over the Mount Igman track, in varying conditions of hazard from rain, snow, ice, passing vehicles, and at times, mortar, tank and machine gun fire. Eventually the shots found their mark: Denis Rutovitz [ [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/newhtml_hl?DB=semukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=denis%20rutovitz&ALL=&ANY=&PHRASE=%22DENIS%20RUTOVITZ%20%22&CATEGORIES=&SIMPLE=&SPEAKER=&COLOUR=red&STYLE=s&ANCHOR=Debate-3_spnew7&URL=/pa/cm199495/cmhansrd/1995-05-31/Debate-3.html#Debate-3_spnew7 House of Commons Hansard Debates for 31 May 1995 ] ] EDA's chairman was wounded. A truck was hit and went off the road, and Andy Sutherland, driving, escaped it seemed by miracle. EDA suspended deliveries of a planned 11000 food parcels for school and hospital staffs. Glasgow based Convoy of Mercy attempted to complete the delivery, but Neil Golightly, their chief organiser, was killed and another truck and load of parcels lost. EDA eventually took in the remaining 2000 parcels after the British-French Rapid Reaction Force and US A10's silenced the besiegers’ guns in September 1995

Edinburgh Direct Aid - Medicine

From 1992 to 1997, EDA delivered hospital beds, theatre wear and drapes, lab coats, nurses uniforms, sterilisers, X-ray and other equipment, Intravenous fluids, giving sets, antibiotics and a wide variety of drugs, as available or requested, directly to hospitals, homes for disabled and chronic sick, clinics and laboratories in Sarajevo, Gornji Vakuf, Goražde, Bihaċ, Tuzla, Travnik, Vitez, Zenica and Fojnica

First International postwar Medical Conference in Sarajevo

The personal interest of EDA’s deputy chair, Prof. Jeanne Bell, resulted in EDA becoming the only charity to deliver laboratory materials and equipment to the diagnostic pathology labs in Bosnia during the war: diagnostic services are the Cinderella of medical services during war, but the illnesses of normal life do not abate on that account!

Four months after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement which marked the end of the conflict in former Yugoslavia, the first post-war pathology conference in Bosnia-Herzegovina was held in Sarajevo at the invitation of the Department of Pathology and the Faculty of Medicine. This meeting was sponsored by the Soros Open Society Fund Bosnia-Herzegovina, with generous additional support from the International Society for Neuropathology, the British Embassy in Sarajevo and Applied Imaging International (UK), and was held on 16-18th May 1996. The programme included keynote presentations from invited international speakers and situation reports from pathology departments in Bosnia. The major objective was for the participants to formulate a programme for reconstituting pathology services, both diagnostic and academic, which had been brought to the brink of total breakdown in the last four years. The resulting conference report was subsumed into the general plans for rebuilding medical services in BiH.

EDA – DISABILITY : The Fojnica Homes

Fojnica is a small town about 40 kilometres to the West of Sarajevo. In its outlying villages of Drin and Bakovići there are two residential homes each looking after about 300 handicapped children and adults, and psychiatrically disturbed adults respectively.

1993 – horror

During the fighting between the Croat militias and the Bosnian government forces April 1993/April 1994, these homes were on the confrontation lines. At Drin at one time the fighting was so intense that the staff, normally devoted, were to terrified to come in to work, and the handicapped children and adults there were left untended for over 48 hours, with appalling effect. Alerted by one of the nurses who walked over the mountains through the fighting lines and the minefields, UNHCR sent a party with an UNPROFOR escort to investigate. Maureen Lyons, Edinburgh Direct Aid’s representative in Sarajevo, was one of the first on the scene in her capacity as a UNHCR social services officer. She stayed with the children though 10 dreadful days until the UN succeeded in establishing an agreement to respect the neutrality of the hospitals, and medical teams from the Canadian and British forces arrived.

Progress, but...

There is no longer any threat to the physical security of inmates or staff, services have been restored, central and cantonal governments provide a modicum of support. But staff numbers are much lower than they should be, with pay meagre and irregular. Home and patients are kept clean, care is regular and loving, but opportunities for exercise, play, development of potential, and therapy are sadly limited. Food supplies, clothing, footwear, sanitary supplies, toiletries and fuel have been very short indeed at times, and are still short now: - enough to keep alive but not much more.

Helping jog along

Edinburgh Direct Aid had made regular deliveries to Drin and Bakovići since September 1994. These comprised family parcels for staff, food supplements, toiletries, basic medical supplies, footwear, materials for writing and drawing, basketballs and other sports goods, winter cloths and shoes.Planning to get better - help from Edinburgh HealthCare Trust and the Soros foundation

Following a week-long assessment visit to Fojnica by a party from Moray House and Gogarburn, in May 1996 7 senior staff from the two institutions visited Edinburgh on the invitation of Edinburgh Direct Aid and Edinburgh Healthcare Trust, with support from the Soros Foundation Open Society Fund. The object of the visit was to enable the visitors to see at first hand the possibilities for improving care and enabling progress to independence of handicapped children and adults that modern methods, new approaches and adequate staff numbers can bring

The Fojnica-Gogarburn Axis

Over the 1996 Christmas/Hogmanay period, Alastair Murdoch, senior physiotherapist at Gogarburn, rendezvoused with the Christmas convoy in Sarajevo. He and Angus Greensleaves spent two weeks working at Fojnica, helping to train staff in the use of newly acquired physiotherapy and generally assisting with the care of patients. In October 1997, Alastair Murdoch led an EDA group going to Fojnica, to deliver and install a complete Snoezeln room (a specially equipped relaxtion-stimulation therapy room), and to institute a program of volunteer support for the two institutions.

Tangible Progress

Physiotherapy programmes are up and running at both homes, largely equipped by Edinburgh Direct Aid working with Edinburgh Healthcare Trust. Care has moved beyond mere physical maintenance, to positive encouragement of development. Games rooms, art rooms, occupational therapy, and a music therapy programme now exist. Smiles break out! There is still a long way to go, but largely inspired by experience of the possible in Edinburgh, the directors and staff have put together their own development plan, and found further backing from other donors.

To the present day

EDA’s support for Fojnica has continued, with many deliveries of food, clothing, footware, furniture and toys. In 1999 a sorely needed visit by a dentist was arranged. Also in that year, two trained EDA volunteers spent some months assisting the overburdened and seldom paid staff in their daily chores. EDA is currently (2001) sending a engineer and technician from its building team in Bihać to assess the possibility of reducing overcrowding by building another floor on the top of the main building.

Edinburgh Direct Aid - Art and Sport

EDA is committed to the support and restoration of the richness and diversity of the sporting, artistic and intellectual life of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Bosnia. To this end EDA has brought art exhibitions from Sarajevo to the Edinburgh festival, taken art works from the UK for exhibition in Sarajevo, and helped restart the Sarajevo music library. At the height of the siege, EDA conveyed 22 tons of newsprint from Split to Sarajevo to help newspapers keep publishing - and with the help of General Sir Michael Rose brought an FCSarajevo/Railway Club football team to Scotland to play exhibition and fundraising matches!

EDA’s 1’st REFUGEE RETURN PROJECT (1996/7)

By 1995 there were thousands of refugees from Bosnia in the UK. Most were Moslem or of mixed descent and marriages and were forced from their homes in circumstances of unbelievable horror. Many lost all their family in massacres. Nevertheless, the vast majority longed to go back to their homes. In 1996 and 1997, Edinburgh Direct Aid helped 370 brave men and women, and their children, to return to Bosnia to try to rebuild their lives and communities there. EDA
*worked in co-operation with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the BiH Ministry of Refugees, and the local authorities in Ključ and other Bosnian towns.
*picked up the refugees from wherever they lived in Britain.
*looked after them on the way (we send a trained nurse and counsellor with the coach, and arrange accommodation at overnight stops).
*took with each family the furniture and other possessions which they had managed to acquire in the UK so that they were not returning in a state of utter destitution.
*saw them through customs, passport, visa and registration problems.
*helped them to move back in to their houses, by clearing up rubble and mess, and trying to make at least a few rooms of the usually wrecked houses weatherproof.
*kept in touch, and tried to maintain the sense of those over there being cared for by those over here

EDA was the only organisation offering help of this kind and quality to Bosnian refugees in the UK wanting to return home

WHERE WILL PEOPLE LIVE?

Through the length and breadth of Bosnia, the eye was – and in some places still is - assaulted by broken houses: skeletal roofless walls, shells of buildings with gaping window sockets, or simply piles of rubble.

In one small group of villages near the town of Ključ in N. West Bosnia, nearly 3500 of a total of 4000 houses had been damaged to significant degree. Some of those who returned to their homes with the assistance of Edinburgh Direct Aid were forced to spend a winter in houses with only remnants of a roof, walls with plastic sheets over windows, and a cold water hose for water if they were lucky.In July 1997, with funds granted by the European Commission, EDA launched a project to repair 150 houses in the villages mentioned. The programme focused on those least able to help themselves, particularly the many women who had lost brothers, husbands, sons in the massacres of July 1992 . In about two thirds of cases, only materials and some skilled help were supplied. But in the case of women alone, or the elderly or infirm, EDA did the whole job using local building contractors.

By March 1998 all was complete. In passing, with some help from Scottish Power, Liz McLaughlin and her team had turned the lights back on in one of the villages where the supply had been destroyed.

1998: REBUILDING COMMUNITY AND CIVIC LIFE IN KLJUČ AND ITS VILLAGES

Education Support Programme: EDA supplied writing materials, school furniture, sports equipment, refurbished computers and other teaching materials. A series of English language courses were given by TEFL-trained volunteers . Local Clinic: EDA brought equipment and supplies. An ambulance was purchased and delivered by Rotary District 1140.Employment Opportunities: practical steps included
#setting up of a woodworking business for manufacture of flooring and other joinery products.. In 2001 its still going strong, with 7 men employed in the Joinery shop.
#smallholdings: These are crofting villages. EDA supplied two 36 HP tractors, to help cultivate the land, and with Rotary 1140, help establish egg-production for income.
#sewing room: with help from Monmouth Aid, Malteser and the Office of Overseas Development, EDA equipped a women’s co-operative sewing group with 12 industrial sewing machines and table, two industrial cutters, and many pallets of cloth (mostly donated by June Cormy’s Edinburgh-based Cloth Shop). This employment for 12 women for some years.
#Fire engine and Rubbish Truck: with the help of the Scottish Office and Sterling Council, EDA has supplied a Green Goddess fire engine and a rubbish compactor - both sorely needed.

1999-2000: Reconstruction in Bosnia

ECHO the EC’s European Community Humanitarian Organisation awarded Edinburgh Direct Aid three contracts (total value nearly £1,000,000) to rebuild 142 severely war-damaged houses in the north-western part of Bosnia. Of these, 67 are for Bosnian Serbs while 75 are for Muslim families. Work went well and thanks to the good management of Liz McLaughlin in the field, and George McNeill on the financial side, EDA was able to complete some 10% more houses than originally contracted for, while remaining within budget.

EDA AND THE SCOTTISH CHARITIES KOSOVO APPEAL, 1998-2000

In October 1998, EDA invited all Scottish charities with an interest in the Balkans to a conference in the City Chambers. The majority agreed that some form of co-operation was desirable. The first practical step resulting from the conference, in Feb 1999, was a volunteer convoy taking 9 donated caravans to Kukes on the Albania/Kosovo border, for use of Kosovan refugees.

Next, in Feb. 1999, a number of concerned Scottish Charities joined together to form the Scottish Charities Kosovo Appeal, with Edinburgh Direct Aid as the Coordinating Charity.

Shortly after SCKA’s first appeal was launched by Radio Forth, the Sunday Mail took it up, and Sir Tom Farmer offered the support of the logistic, financial and administrative services of Kwik-Fit. This resulted in an eventual inflow of over £500,000 of donations to SCKA, and a huge volume of goods – clothes, bedding, food and toiletries to Kwik-Fit centres across Scotland. SCKA was formally constituted as comprising the following 6 charities:
*Shetland Aid
*Edinburgh Direct Aid
*Connect Humanitarian Relief
*No Frontiers Humanitarian Aid
*Blytheswood Care
*New Hope Trust

Dumfries and Galloway Aid were formed specifically to get the relief effort launched, but later disbanded; Scottish International Relief participated for a few weeks then withdrew. Later, Mission East Trust joined the consortium. Legally the association is constituted as a part of Edinburgh Direct Aid, but with an independent management committee. The chairman of SCKA is, by the agreement, Nigel Griffiths MP. The management committee consists of representatives of each charity, a representative of Kwik-Fit and the chairman. Later SCKA was joined by LASEDAK (London and South East Direct Aid), technically another subsidiary of EDA.

Macedonia, April 1999

Tens of thousands of refugees forcibly ejected from their homes in Pristina and elsewhere found their way to the Macedonian border, and also to the border with Albania at Kukes in the North. Initially not allowed in to Macedonia they spent days and weeks in atrocious conditions – in the open in sleet and snow, without food, sanitation or clean water, and always, behind them, the Serb paramilitaries.

Helped by the generosity of Virgin Atlantic and Direct Holidays SCKA sent 70 tons of food, clothes and toiletries by air to Skopje airport in Macedonia and to Thessalonika in Greece. These were met by the first SCKA party on the ground, and distributed by the British troops responsible for Stankovac camp near the border.

Responding to an urgent need which had not been met, and in collaboration with International Medical Corps, a dental clinic was established in Stankovac camp. This clinic saved 30 patients daily from the misery of untreated dental abscesses and rotting teeth,

Albania, May-June 1999

12 large truckloads of aid were despatched overland using a mix of donated vehicles with volunteer drivers, and commercial trucks. They went to Korca in Southern Albania, where refugees from Kosovo were arriving in increasing numbers.

SCKA chartered a 1500 ton vessel to load at Leith Port and sail directly to Durrës in Albania. The ship carried 30 truckloads of clothes and bedding, 50 tons of mixed food, 100 tons of flour, and 20 tons of toiletries for Kosovar refugees in Albania. Stephanie Wolfe Murray (of Connect Humanitarian Aid) established an SCKA team in Albania to receive the ship and distribute the goods to the refugees.

Conditions in Albania were not easy… there was a constant battle against petty theft by dock workers, neighbourhood children, petty Mafiosi and bureaucratic encroachment on everything; but there was a lot of help too from good neighbours, from Greek and Italian NATO troops (AFOR), from other NGO's.The majority of the goods were distributed to refugees staying with host families, with a proportion going to the hosts, who were almost always in equal need. Day after long hot dusty thief-fighting day, SCKA volunteers delivered clothes, food, toiletries in Tirana, Skodra, Korca……

June 1999

Edinburgh Direct Aid received £200,000 from a concert organised by the Sunday Mail: these and other funds collected by the constituent charities went to support the SCKA Kosovo project

July 1999

SCKA was one of the first NGO’s to arrive in Pristina on the heels of NATO SCKA decided to "adopt” 10 villages clustered around Polac and Qirez in the hard-hit Drenica valley, near Mitrovica. A team was established there, led again by Stephanie Wolfe-Murray with occasional management support from EDA, and staffed by volunteers from the constituent charities.

August 1999 – Summer 2000

By agreement with UNHCR and the main local aid organisation, the Mother Theresa Society, SCKA took responsibility for delivery to the adopted villages of all supplies from the World Food Programme and UNHCR , and for provision of winter shelter.

eptember-October 1999

Delivery of winter clothes held back from the Spring collection began.Scotland clothed Kosovo! – nearly 50 maximum-size articulated lorries brought clothing, bedding, food and toiletries from SCKA warehouses all round Edinburgh, with contributions from Aberdeen and Inverness. Distribution was not only by the SCKA transport team on the ground, but by British and other KFOR units, and many other NGO’s

eptember-December 1999

Christian Aid supported SCKA’s shelter work by means of a £360,000 grant (via EDA). DfiD (the UK Department for International Development) made grants totalling £220,000 for purchase of tools, chickens and tractor parts for the villages (via Connect Humanitarian Aid) and a vehicle for the project. Shelter work proceeded in the adopted and neighbouring villages. SCKA surveyed eventually 400+ houses and issued vouchers for supply of building materials from a local timber merchant: eventually over 200 roof timber structures were permanently repaired and the roofs temporarily covered with heavy duty plastic. Over 500 warm and dry rooms were created. Because SCKA was not locked into a system of predefined "roof-kits" it could respond flexibly to need: using a local supplier, SCKA’s programme was more successful than was the case with some other NGO's. USAID made additional timber and other supplies available.LASEDAK (London and South East Direct Aid) brought in funds for school repairs and supplies.

December-February

Christian Aid granted a further £40,000 for emergency shelter work.SCKA joined UNHCR and Malteser in a programme to supply 400 weather-proof and well-insulated prefabricated container-size shelters for families without proper winter accommodation. Malteser prefabricated the units, SCKA and UNHCR field officers assessed need and selected beneficiaries, SCKA and Malteser teams delivered and assembled the units.

April-May - a 3 year old restored to life

SCKA (through No Frontiers) arranged transport to UK (Mission East) for a surgical operation in Aberdeen which saved the life of a 3 year old boy, Visar, wasting away with an oesophageal obstruction. The operation was wholly successful. A crisis on the return journey was resolved by LASEDAK

March-May

SCKA assisted with preparing business plans and obtaining credit for small businesses: a e.g.: repair of a destroyed flour mill, purchase of a combine harvester, purchase of diesel-test equipment. Some of these were LASEDAK projects.

World Food Programme deliveries and UNHCR deliveries were scaled down, but SCKA continued to delivery to sensitive areas using international drivers. LASEDAK made further funds available for school repairs.

EDA’s 2’nd Refugee repatriation programme, April – August 2000

IOM (International Organisation for Migration), acting at the request of the UK government, asked EDA to arrange for uplift, despatch and delivery of personal possessions and furniture of Kosovo refugees in the UK returning home by air under the UK voluntary return programme. There were over 300 families to be repatriated, scattered over the length and breadth of the UK.

The scheme: EDA volunteers would collect the furniture from wherever it was, take it to suitably located warehouses. Long haul would be done a commercial carrier, John Shirley Ltd. At the far end, trucks would be received by the SCKA/EDA team in Mitrovica and contents delivered by local drivers using SCKA trucks. Overall cost was estimated at EDA’s traditional £50 per cubic meter, and each family was theoretically allowed up to 12 cu. Meters.

Doing it:
*John Shirley did us proud providing eventually 20 of the largest volume vans on the road.
*Our volunteers did us even prouder, collecting goods everywhere – Ulverston, Dover, Glasgow, Leeds, to name but a few collection points. Haley Clark and Janis Noble did most of the planning and organisation, and a good deal of the work. Haley, Janis, Des Stewart, Peter Boyd, David Reeks and many other EDA regulars and newcomers hefted 1800 cubic metres – 200 tons – of clothes and beds and bedding, wardrobes and cookers, televisions, boxes of food, bundles of baby clothes – everything – along corridors, down stairs across courtyards, and up on to the lorries: then downloaded into the warehouse and uploaded again to the long haul vehicles. It was demonstrated that EDA women volunteers can load washing machines single handed onto high tailboard lorries, no problem! one of the real stalwarts of the uplift – and along with Janis Noble , its organisation – will tell you more. Many of John Shirley’s drivers, when they learned that our folk were all volunteers, pitched in alongside: as did the Social Services reps of some towns ( but not of one, which shall be nameless, where they claimed not to be insured for manual labour, so stood and watched – then asked for attendance fees!)
*Refugees in the South East had accumulated fewer possessions than those elsewhere, but there were nevertheless several truckloads: all the collections in the London area were done by the remarkable Martin Chapell)
*KwikFit arranged warehouse space in Birmingham, and Blythswood (a member of the Scottish Charities Kosovo Appeal) gave the use of their depot in Rochester. Another warehouse was rented in Huddersfield.
*The SCKA transport team in Mitrovica, led by Pat Rutherford, handled the distribution in Kosovo. The wonderful team of local drivers there found all the destinations and endured the inevitable complaints about items broken and missing: efforts were mad to replace or compensate for loss, probably not to everyone’s satisfaction. But most clients were happy enough to see their goods arrive!
*Eventually all was accomplished, more-or-less within budget.

West Lothian Council

Edinburgh Direct Aid has co-operated with many agencies and civic authorities, but with none so closely as with West Lothian Council.

June 1999

EDA/SCKA was awarded an EAR (European Agency for Reconstruction) contract for permanent repair of over 400 houses (including replacement of plastic roofing previously supplied). The contract value was 600,000 Euro. + materials.2000/2001

Reconstruction

In Bosnia we completed the ECHO contracts engaged on in 1999/2000, and signed up to a new program, for minority return, in Ključ and Bosanski Krupa.In Kosovo working as SCKA/EDA, we applied for and obtained an E.A.R. (European Reconstruction Agency) grant for house repair and reconstruction in the Skenderaj municipality: that is in the area of our “adopted” villages. Some in SCKA felt that the contract should have been applied for jointly by the Scottish Charities: but prior experience indicated that in view of the magnitude of the financial responsibilities we would have to bear, it would be best as an EDA venture.

Management was initially entrusted old friend Jonathan Dames: but after a few months Jonathan moved on, and the only course seemed to be to bring in Liz McLaughlin to manage both the Kosovo and the Bosnia projects. This was duly done, with great success:

Results:
*65 + houses completed in Bosnia, most complete rebuilds. Contract value, £750,000
*500+ houses repaired rebuilt in Kosovo, 2/3 complete rebuilds. Contract value £750,000 plus cost of materials.

EDA was often top of the EAR NGO performance league in Kosovo!In Bosnia, EDA was the sole NGO invited to a presentation to EU ambassadors in Krupa , resulting in £75,00 grant from Portuguese Embassy for rebuilding a school!A further contract has just awarded by the US Bureau of Refugess and Migration, for reconstruction and minority return, Krupa – Srebrenica. Value, $700,000

The Christine Witcutt Memorial Day-Care Centre

January 2001: a three-way contract was signed with Vladimir Nazor special needs School and Municipality of New Sarajevo. The contract specifies (1) that the Centre should be housed in a purpose-built but vacant building in the Vladimir Nazor school. (2) that the School should manage and run the Centre under the superivision of a Management Committee representing all parties. (3) that EDA will meet all running costs for 5 years (4) the municipality will take over financial responsibility after five years. The Center opened in September 2001

References