What’s been achieved in our fifth year
The registered charity was started on 30th April 2020 so this is our fifth year of operation as Fuel Macedonia. As always, we are so grateful for the generosity of people in the UK towards the people of N.Macedonia that have made a real difference in the lives of many households.
All the projects we have undertaken to support have been those suggested by our Local Partners and they are all ongoing projects from year to year. The following report gives details of the projects for the recent financial year-end of operation of the Charity. As a reminder, 100% of donations go directly towards the cause.
Relief of poverty/financial hardship
Community Outreach
This initiative was born out of observing groups reaching out to their own, and sometimes new, communities and incurring expenses to provide for some of the basic needs that the Project Leaders found in their work. Their aims are always to better the living situations and improve the living environments of those residing in their areas.
This year a new project was added, Prilep, which is in the middle of the country and the Project Leader serves a predominantly Roma community. Vratnica was stopped as the Project Leader has suffered significant health issues and was unable to continue the work he’d started in the village.
In total, for the Community Outreach initiative, we have been able to fund:
- 34 households received 102 food parcels
- 8 households received a total of 22 months’ heating
Project specifics:
- Banica: This project supports 6 families with food parcels every month, delivering a total of 48 food parcels. It was decided that whilst this was a very worthwhile area to invest in, it was not completely within the bounds of Fuel Macedonia ’s objects to support 6 families regularly (recognised that this occurs in the Food Parcel project, but that is a specifically designated gift given to help 2 families.)
- Polog (Tetovo and Gostivar): The Project Leader has supported 6 families with 27 food parcels and 2 households with 7 metres of wood between them.
- Prilep: This project is supported 1 household with 2 food parcels.
- Resen: The Project Leader has supported 21 families with 25 food parcels and 7 families with 15 metres of wood between them.
Winter Heating
Separate to the the Community Outreach projects, this project purchases either firewood or Calor gas, to heat homes during the worst 3 months of the year because the price of electricity for heating is considerable and the gathering of firewood is controlled by the government (there are wood police!).
With the start of the Community Outreach (CO) initiative, we now have only 1 Local Partner who requests wood and he looks out for households in need in Skopje. This last winter has been a lot milder than other years and there have not been so many requests for help –coupled with a lower donation rate. This year we were able to buy a total of 9 months of heating for 3 households. We didn’t need to buy any stoves this year as they had been purchased last year!!) THANK YOU!
Food Parcels
Again, separate to the the Community Outreach projects, Food parcels are never the same – they depend on the makeup and heritage of the family concerned. They average £40 per ‘food parcel’ which will also contain cleaning and washing materials. Once again with the advent of our Community Outreach Project, food parcels were not so sought after – have a look at the Community Outreach figures. This year we were able to buy 13 food parcels for 3 households. THANK YOU!
Sustainable projects
Shutka Food Garden
The food garden in Shutka had a good year this year but the garden manager has obtained a full-time job and we will have to see what transpires next year.
Wellbeing sessions
These are run by our Local Partner in Tetovo, who has a venue. This particular cohort is made up of 8 guys from 2 cities: Tetovo and Gostivar, and they’ve met 7 times this year and it’s been fully funded by Fuel Macedonia. THANK YOU!
