In Some of my earlier blog posts I mentioned the unemployment crisis in Kosovo, the country that Vahide and her family currently lie in. According to an article written by Elton Tota titled, “Kosovo Continues to Face High Unemployment,” from Balkan News Agency, “According to official statistics, the rate of unemployment in Kosovo has gone up to 35.3%”. He also mentions the fact that only 300 thousand out of the 1.2 million people in the labor force are employed. The rest of the people are either unemployed or inactive. A huge cause of the extremely high unemployment rate is due to the war in Kosovo that lasted from 1998-1999. According to a research report conducted by Elodie Douarin, Julie Litchfield and RAchel Sabates-Wheeler, that is titled, “Poverty, Livelihoods and War Legacies: the Face of Post-War Rural Kosovo,” the end of the war left Kosovo in devastating conditions. The article states, “The conflict was marked by attacks on civilians and massive movements of people and resulted in dramatic losses in physical, human, and social capital as well as insecurity over ownership of agricultural land and commercial property ownership.” Since the end of the war, the people of Kosovo have had to struggle with failed crops due to poor condition of the agricultural soil that was caused by the NATO air strikes. Most families in the area don’t have the money or resources to bounce back from the devastation that happened in the area years ago. The only possible strategy for most individuals is to either leave the region or get international assistance, which is exactly what Vahide and her family are doing through the Kiva program.
