The perilous life of of non-profits.

From June 28th:

Udruženje Krajiška Suza (or “Krajina Tear”), a local organization in Sanski Most, is perhaps the most underfunded community outreach program I have ever witnessed.

We arrived at their headquarters mid-morning today and toured the small, two-story building. The space has been split into a variety of office and meeting rooms, where we met and talked with various staff members about the mission and struggles of the organization. Krajina Tear supports seven full-time staff, who were trained by a German psychotherapist to provide psychological support and healthcare to low-income war survivors in and around Sanski Most. The center’s staff and 35 volunteers, all war widows themselves, provide services to more than 400 client members within a 20-mile radius. But international funding has dropped to 40 percent of its former levels, causing a drastic cut in services. Now, the center is funded by one Swiss church, whose support will also dry up in two years.

On its shrinking budget, Krajina Tear offers a free clinic, home visits for psychological counseling and healthcare provision, a social center and support group for the elderly, and workshops on peacebuilding, reconciliation, and foreign languages. The building’s top floor has been converted into a room for preschoolers with special needs, for whom there are currently no services in Sanski Most. Complete with colorful carpet and bright pictures on the walls, but lacking funding, the room sits empty.

Downstairs, a similarly grim situation confronts the women who work for Krajina Tear. In the free clinic, one doctor, one nurse, and one psychotherapist see daily walk-ins facing a variety of health problems. Their small crew also provides in-home services for elderly patients confined to their houses or living in remote villages. Most of the patients cannot afford basic hospital services and depend entirely on the healthcare provided by Krajina Tear. Over 90 percent of the center’s 200 elderly clients depend entirely on the center’s free provision of their prescription drugs (which are not provided for Krajina Tear by the government; they must be purchased privately at full cost). In addition, despite the traumas of war which have affected the entire area, there are no private psychologists in all of Sanski Most. The hospital is inadequate for the needs of the community—the two rooms that hold its “psychiatric wing” are staffed only twice a week by a doctor from Prijedor. Thus, the few trained therapists of Krajina Tear bear the burden of an entire community’s wounds of war, fighting with the stigmas of mental illness, small-town social pressures, and their own personal histories.

In the early afternoon we accompanied one of the workers on a site visit across town. In a big white van, we drove across Sanski Most to a neighborhood on the city’s outskirts. As we piled out of the van and filed through the gate to the yard, we were greeted enthusiastically by an older man, whose friendly grin and eager hand-pumping clearly indicated his anticipation of our visit. Leaving our shoes at the door, we entered the living room and greeted his wife and two young grandsons, who were sitting on the couch waiting. The woman from Krajina Tear visits this family twice every week to check on them; as we sat and talked for half an hour, we quickly discovered why.

Stories of war surface quickly from people here. Mere minutes into our conversation, our jovial host had hiked up his pant leg to show us the gangrene that had infected his leg, blackening and leathering the skin all the way up his shin. He was stabbed 13 times during the war, including on his feet, and the scars and infections trouble him. But he was quick to add that he was grateful just to be alive. He knew many people with a different story.

The war has taken a toll in a different way on his wife. Now crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, she sat and cried and talked of suicide, telling us that without her grandsons she would certainly be dead by now. Those in our group who spoke Bosnian were quick to jump in and comfort her, but her battle with depression is a daily one, exacerbated by a lack of adequate psychiatric or medical care. As the doctor at Krajina Tear told us, antidepressants are no longer on the government’s list of necessary medications, and thus are not provided. For this woman, who (along with her husband and two grandsons) depends on her daughter’s salary of 200 marks a month, such expensive medication is out of the question. Instead, she relies on a bottle of Tylenol that expired in 2003 and a motley assortment of herbal remedies prescribed by the pharmacist. Nothing in her jam-packed pink shoebox of drugs actually suited her mental or psychological ailments.

The work of Krajina Tear is heartbreaking. Inspiring, but heartbreaking. The turnover rate for the center’s volunteers is high, and understandably so: with such enormous problems, and so few resources, it is a daily battle to improve the living conditions of women, the elderly, and children affected by war and poverty. The center is desperately in need of money—it was their greatest and most simple request. Members of our delegation will be spending the next two days working on grants for the organization, but this post is also a plea: become involved in the reconstruction efforts and the human rights work being done in Bosnia. The challenges are great—there is a long way to go—but with the faithful work of people like the women of Krajina Tear and with the support of others, progress can be made.

I'm hoping to send stories to Decorah Newspapers back home. Krajina Tear is one of many organizations that desperately need and deserve support from philanthropists around the world, and the more people that know these stories, the better.

So if you are reading this and want to donate, below is the contact information for Krajina Tear:

k.suza@bih.net.ba
Contact person: Almira Selimović

Udruženje Krajiška Suza
Vahidbegova b.b.
Sanski Most, Bosnia