Monastery Champions Water Project for Kosovo Albanian Community
On November 17, 2008, representatives from the Visoki Decani Serbian Orthodox Monastery and the neighboring Kosovo Albanian village of Isniq/Istnic celebrated the completion of a local irrigation project.
The project, funded by USAID and Norwegian Church Aid, was led by the Monastery's Abbot, Bishop Teodosije Sibalic. Isniq/Istnic residents sought the Monastery’s help in building an irrigation water project to the village's farms from a source on the Monastery's grounds. Seeing an opportunity to improve relations between the Monastery and its Kosovo Albanian neighbors, the Bishop requested funding from the international community. Such collaboration remains rare in Kosovo, where ongoing tensions persist between Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs, even 10 years after the violent conflict.
USAID granted $27,341 to a local NGO, Community Development Foundation (CDF), which also received 45,000 euros from the Monastery, funds donated to them by Norwegian Church Aid. The irrigation system conveys water from a source inside the Special Protective Zone surrounding the Monastery, established to protect this UNESCO World Heritage Site, to farmland in Isniq/Istnic. The project, including the path for the conveyance system, was finalized after two years of discussion among Monastery staff, local residents, and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.
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| Rame Bala, Isniq/Istnic community representative, at the
ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new irrigation project. |
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