The days of walking on average
eighteen kilometers to and from school are now over for primary school in a municipality in northern Montenegro, thanks to a transportation donated by World Vision microfinance institution
AgroInvest.
More than a dozen have averaged this walk to attend their lessons every day in the primary school Vuk Karadzic in Bistrica village.
'Children are our future and we
are happy to be able to facilitate the education and living conditions for them. This is one of many projects of this kind in a row we have implemented and we are extremely proud of them', said Dejan
Vujosevic, AgroInvest director as he delivered the van.
The school principal, Cemal Zoronjic outlined the importance of giving access to primary education to children in remote villages,
which is seeing a decline in attendance as many young people are abandoning education to head for the city to find livelihoods.
'It is normal that youngsters are attracted to city life,
but many of them are not really facing bright future as they were hoping to' he explained 'Under the patronage of this school we have established preschool section four years ago. AgroInvest has
already made donations for the youngest preschool children in radiators, carpets, computer, vacuum cleaner, a TV and DVD set' he continued.
In total the donation received from WVS/M
program, AgroInvest, amounts over US$14,000.
World Vision's microfinance program, AgroInvest, has a branch office in Bijelo Polje over 5 years and has been successfully lending loans and
covers over 38% of rural area of northern Montenegro. Bijelo Polje office has over 3, 400 active clients and in total over 9, 450 loans disbursed since inception.
The school still faces
other challenges including how to heat the school each winter, where temperatures can plummet to -20 degrees Celsius. During winter, in order to reduce the need for heating and the local population
helps school to prepare wood to fuel the ovens for heating each year.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
