Who we are and what we do

Who we are

ICAUK is a small charity with its headquaters located in Devizes, Wiltshire.

What we do

We assist Northern Albanian Communities' development with the direct alleviation of hardship with humanitarian aid and development such as: .....all designed to help communities work themselves out of poverty through self reliance with what ICAUK describes as "Community Sustainable Development"

We work through our representative in Tirana, the local administration in our area and an Albanian voluntary organisation that helps those persecuted during the previous regime.

Education is one of ICAUK's priority tasks.



Rapshe School
The schools in this area do not have basic teaching materials including pens, pencils, paper, drawing instruments, desks, blackboards, etc, etc. Many do not have heating/windows during severe winters and no running water. Despite these crippling disadvantages, most teachers are dedicated and pupil attendance is 90%. Both co-founders came to the conclusion that the form of aid and development that will most benefit Mem and Albania in general, is through general education 
 
A typical classroom environment
Where aid development is targeted at those in priority need, often the recipients cannot maximise the benefit because of a basic lack of education. Many Albanian people become over dependent upon overseas expertise and as a consequence are disempowered from finding their own solutions to problems and from becoming responsible for their own development. The dependency culture generated by the previous regime is therfore compounded by dependence on western development agencies. When this lack of education, training and the dependency culture is located within a context of abject poverty where post communist econmic expectations have not been realised, the result is instabilty.
 

It is within this context that we are including the provision of a programme of humanitarian and development support including education and training in-puts that neither the government, local authority or aid agencies are currently able to provide. ICA's work is therefore an integrated community development programme. It is based on a person to person and direct approach. 

How it all started

The identification of humanitarian and development needs for this area was established from the experience of 2 people during their respective work in Mem.

Ray Argent was a community development worker in the area for 18 months and in addition to education projects, worked on water supply, primary health care, self-build housing, small business development and the development of a community information and advice service.

David James operates a personally funded fair trade business within this area of Albania with co-operatives/groups of families, who after 4 years involvement, now make goods to western marketable standards which are imported to the UK and sold through suitable outlets, such as the office in Devizes. Additionally, David is Chairman of the Committee of the 80 UK charities operating in Albania which is dealing with the 1997/98 humanitarian crises, development and civil society issues.