Supporters of Patney-based International Community Assist will hear this week about the plight of street children in the Albanian capital, Tirana.

The new Albanian director of the charity, Holta Koci, is speaking at the Wiltshire Yeoman pub in Chirton tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7.30pm to drum up support for those forgotten or overlooked by the authorities in the former Communist country.

Ms Koci, 34, took over last year from Bashkim Bashllari, who had been the Albanian chief of the charity since it was set up in 1997.

She is multi-lingual and is married with two sons, aged six and four. Her husband, Nertan, is an actor with the Albanian National Theatre.

David James, the former Army officer who founded the ICA, said they were delighted to have found Ms Koci.

He said: “Bashkim had to retire through ill health and we asked him to look for a replacement. He had no hesitation in recommending Holta, who has many years experience working with Italian charities in Albania.”

The charity has helped hundreds of needy Albanian people over the last 13 years and is now targeting the growing problem of children abandoned on the streets of the capital Tirana.

Ms Koci said: “There are about 800 children living, eating and sleeping on the streets. Some are as young as three or four but you can see babies left on the streets by their mothers with begging tins beside them.”

The children come from the shanty towns around Tirana where people living in shacks that would not be out of place in Lagos, Nigeria or Mumbai, India.

Ms Koci said: “The parents don’t have the money to support their families so some children get abandoned. The children live by going through the garbage dumps, finding metal tins they can sell.

“There is government money to support these families and give the children an education, but they don’t know the money is there.

“We plan to set up a centre in Tirana where the children will be brought to get a decent meal and get diverted into the education system.

“We have got the funding to establish the centre, we just need to find a venue.”

Mr James added: “But the centre will still need its running costs paid and we will continue to raise funding for it.”

For more information about ICA go to the website www.ica-uk.co.uk