Success Stories of Return and Integration in Albania: Artur's Story

Artur has recently turned 18. He is a boy of few words and gladly let the father speak in his place. He nods, looking vaguely at something out of the window: it seems that everything happening does really affect him. Artur spent six months in Italy, between Bologna and Padua, when he was still a minor. Like many of his peers he migrated alone to Italy aiming at receiving the large protection that the Italian legal system grants to unaccompanied minors. He doesn’t express any emotion when he talks about his experience abroad, but he has kept a picture on his self-phone as a souvenir of Padua: him standing in front of the statue in the main square of the city, smiling like a tourist.

While the mixture of Turkish coffee slowly goes down Artur explains, or let his father explain, that after few months he wanted to return to Albania. He wanted to stay closer to his older sister who had health problems, and help the family with medical expenses and other needs.

His family is in difficult economic conditions and indebted as a consequence of his sisters' illness. They own a little plot of land where they built a single-storey house. The land is close to the Lana river, which is small in Tirana but becomes more dangerous in the outskirts, where Artur and his family live. When it rains too much the river inexorably overflows and floods the neighbourhood

Artur’s grandparents very low pension is the only fixed income for the family. His father works now and then in the construction field and Artur helps him.

IOM supported Artur’s return and reintegration with the purchase of a cow. Considering his family’s economic situation, Artur has chosen a kind of support that would provide his family with an immediate income rather that improving his educational or professional skills. The family can benefit from the milk produced and the yearly sell of the new-born calves. Now, the total family budget has increased of a quarter: “IOM help is useful, it allows us to partly cover our basic needs and improve our living standard. The increasing of our income gives us optimism for the future, I hope that we will have the opportunity to save some money to buy a small tractor in order to better plough our plot of land”, says Sajmir, Artur’s father.