UNMIK/PR/390

PRESS RELEASE - 14 October 2000

SRSG opens “Laura Scotti School” in Kosovo Polje/Fushe Kosovo

Pristina-- SRSG Bernard Kouchner today opened “Laura Scotti School” in Grabovc in Kosovo Polje/Fushe Kosove municipality. The school that accommodates more than 300 children in ten classes, was reconstructed by an Italian NGO AiBi thanks to funds provided by Missione Arcobaleno, DFID and Consiglio Nazionale Italiano del Notariato.

Laura Scotti, psychologist and Ai.Bi. volunteer has been taking care of the children of all Grabovc’s  communities when she died in the Word Food Programme plane crash in November 1999 in Kosovo. The population of Grabovc requested that the school be dedicated to her.

Dr. Kouchner, addressing the audience that included the late Laura Scotti’s parents, said: “Laura Scotti was dedicated to the children of the world through Ai.Bi. She came to Grabovc to create hope. She was a hero for human rights. She paid a high price with her life trying to alleviate the suffering of the children of this destroyed village.  She was a symbol of the commitment and solidarity of the international communities to support you, people of Kosovo, and to build a democratic society”.

The primary school, formerly called “Zenel Salihu”, is one of the eight hundred schools that were damaged by the war in Kosovo. Two hundred schools have been reconstructed so far with a budget of 80 million DM.  Donors include the Government of Japan, DANIDA, CIDA, British Red Cross, ECHO, UNICEF, UNDP, Islamic Development Fund and Oxfam. The Department of Education and Science is expecting to complete rehabilitation of all these schools by the end of 2001. All schools rehabilitated within this programme meet European standards. As well as classrooms, each school has laboratories, sport grounds, one amphitheater, libraries and extra working rooms for teachers. There are also heating system, water and sanitation, and other facilities that didn’t exist before.

There are still children studying in tents and even in the open air. “This is still a post-war period”, said Michael Daxner, international co-head of the Department of Education and Science. “We have achieved the return of 400,000 children to school. We need four or five times more than the actual 80 million DM budget for reconstruction, to bring all schools to an acceptable level”, he added.