An indoor bathroom for Vesna and her children

World Vision builds an indoor bathroom for six-member family of two sponsored children.

 “No one but us can know how it feels,” says 47-year-old Vesna, sitting on the wooden bench on the porch in front of her home. She is hunched towards large wooden table and speaks in short sentences. She never goes into details, but what she says is enough to picture the life of her family clearly.

Unemployed, like her husband, Vesna and her family survive by collecting paper and waste materials, piles of which cover their muddy yard. It is a cloudy spring day and Vesna looks up the sky. “See, during all these days that it was raining, my husband didn’t manage to earn even one mark,” she says. “The last seven years, we lived from one misfortune to another. First, one of our daughters got struck by electricity. Then, our other daughter got hit by a car and developed epilepsy,” she explains.

Life is hard for Vesna and her family. For more than a decade, Vesna, her husband and their four children, ages 14, 13, 11 and 9, have been living in one room. The one room is their bedroom, kitchen and living room, all at the same time. They converted a nearby wooden shack into bathroom. “We found bathtub and put it inside,” states Vesna. But that bathroom was far from suitable for their family—or any family. With no heating, it was especially in adequate in the winter when temperatures are often below zero. The children had to run around 10 meters from house to the shack to have bath and back again, often risking getting sick from cold.

But, thanks to teacher in the primary school where Vesna’s children study, who heard about the situation of this family and contacted World Vision’s office in Majevica Area Development Program supported by World Vision Taiwan, things are different now. A small bathroom was connected to their house and a toilet and shower were built inside—no more freezing trips to bath. “This bathroom means to us more than in can be described. It is a huge change,” says Vesna.

The youngest daughter, 11-year-old Indira, is also happy for the new bathroom. “It’s better now,” she says shyly. Indira doesn’t speak much, but has a smile on her face all the time. “We have white tiles in bathroom” she whispers, adding that one of their cousins set the tiles up.

With the new, indoor bathroom, life is starting to get better for this humble family. But, there is still a long way to go and many issues that family worries about. Indira wants to become an architect. But with school far away and bus fare to be paid, Vesna is not sure if that will be possible. “Persons can’t choose from what they would like, but from what they must,” she points out.

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*Two of Vesna’s children are sponsored.