British aid helps flood victims

TIRANA, Dec. 14 – As people try to return to their homes after water is slowly leaving the flooded area, the problem remains supplying food, clothing and other daily stuff for the people.
Ian and Helen Faulds, of Cockermouth, U.K. are collecting cash to send to aid workers to Albania after 12,000 people were made homeless in the heaviest rainfall in 100 years.
They also want to recruit west Cumbrians with flood recovery expertise to fly out and help the relief effort.
The Faulds, of Kirkgate, have spent 30 years working for aid charities, visiting trouble spots around the world including Ethiopia, Nepal and Romania.
But they have decided to scale back their globe trotting exploits to launch charity and social enterprise organization PovertySwap, which aims to link up aid workers around the world, using the couple’s contacts, as well as raising money for those in need.
” One of the areas we want to help is Albania, which we visited last March,” said Mrs. Faulds, 52. “Although there has been virtually no publicity here, the floods have been terrible; about 12,000 people have been evacuated. The country is already the poorest in Europe. The rural areas are very deprived. Although Communism ended there 20 years ago, people have struggled to move on.”
Last week’s downpour flooded 14,000 hectares of farming land.
At least 4,597 houses have been damaged and 2,561 have been completely flooded.