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Children for sale, Stories
from Albania
(Enfance à vendre,
histoires d'Albanie)
directed by Clara Ott|
2004
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(c) Flight
movie 2004
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For the
last ten years, thousands of Albanian children as young
as four years’ old have been hired, sold, bought
and transported into Greece for economic exploitation.
In Elbasan, in the heart of Albania, Namik Shehaj, the
co-ordinator and co-founder of the NGO, “NPF”
(Ndhimë Per Fëmjiët : Help the Children
Foundation), spends his days, and often his nights, fighting
this practically institutionalised trafficking. He tries
to prevent the neglect and disappearance of children who
are “at risk,” and to rehabilitate abused
children into school and within their families.
Every day, he gets into his little red van and drives
around the town centre and its poorest districts, which
are mostly populated by gypsies and ‘evgjits’
(originally from Egypt, but now known as ‘the blacks’).
He visits families, listens to what the children tell
him, spots the ones working in the streets, encourages
young beggars to go back to school, and convinces the
parents not to send their children back to Greece.
He regularly passes by the special classes offered by
the Foundation, where various schoolteachers teach children
of all ages to read and write. Indefatigable, Namik supervises
food distribution, livens up parents’ evenings,
and keeps moral high in his team co-ordination meetings.
A great amateur footballer, he referees the sports events
that he sets up each weekend for all the children of the
NPF.
Respected and loved by all, Namik is a personality in
his hometown of Elbasan. His patience and determination
have won him the trust of parents and children alike.
Namik does not judge or condemn. He remains pragmatic.
He introduces clear contracts with the families, who receive
material and financial help on the condition that their
children attend school each morning.
The children know that they can rely on him at all times.
For Ella and Elton, who at the age of 16 have made nearly
one hundred trips into Greece; for Najada, Marenglen and
Sputim, gypsies and badly treated, Namik is a father and
a mentor. He knows how to be firm, how to stop quarrels,
how to make them laugh and how to hold them in his arms.
Above all, Namik lets them speak about what they have
experienced and to place themselves in a future where
they will have control over their own lives.
Through the portrait of this rare character emerges the
entire landscape of an Albania that is trying to be reborn
from its own ashes …
Distribution
: Flight Movie |
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Duration
52 minutes
Format
Dvcam & Beta Digital
Direction Clara
Ott
Image Jérôme
Colin
EditingGuillaume Germaine
Music Goran Bregovic |
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