From the magic of gardens, they manage to be present with colorful jars on Albanian tables. Housewives from Kosovo started businesses from scratch, without thinking that one day the demands would be beyond their capacities. Jams with different fruits and other products, their garden provides products for the family and the market. For several years now, Safete and Miroslavka have been working tirelessly to support their families with the income they provide. The difficulties are countless, despite their willingness to work. Neither enjoyed the support of local and central institutions.
The day starts early for Safete, which does various works throughout the year. The housewife from Vrella in Istog, four years ago started the business from home producing jam, ayvar and compote. The apiary is also part of it, where she takes care of more than 20 hives.
Bicaj: We make around 50-60 kilograms of jam
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“We have started from scratch, we have always produced a little bit for ourselves, for the children, but now, four years ago, we started to produce even more, because some demands have started coming, so we make about 50-60 kilos of jam.. We went and bought them, because we don’t have our own plums, and we took them and brought them home. And they came directly to the house and boughtthe jam, someone five kilos, 10 kilos, and that’s how we expanded the business”, she tells KosovaPress.
As she enumerates the types of jams she produces, she also mentions the many difficulties.
Bicaj: It is very difficult, it is not easy at all
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“We make jams from plums, strawberries, cranberries, apples, pears, we produce all kind of jams just to have sales. It’s very difficult, it’s not easy at all, because we don’t have equipment, we prepare it the way our mothers used to prepared it.. It’s a kind of difficulty, it’s the fear of whether they will be good. The beginning is difficult, until the work starts, because we only worked as a family, but now I want to expand the business, and hire two or three women who would work here at home”, she adds.
The old recipes are still in demand today, but it is difficult for Safete to work with old methods. She aims for her products to be exported abroad, but for this she says that she also needs workers.
Bicaj: I mostly work with fire
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“I mostly work with fire, like our mothers used to, because we don’t have equipment, neither for grinding nor mixers. We just turn on the fire and with several pans, boil the jams in a wooden pot. No one helped us. If we had had even a little help, we could have expanded the business and hired many women”, says Bicaj.
Miroslavka Simonovic from Gorazdec has been involved in this activity since childhood. Various fruit processing recipes, she says she inherited from her mother.
Simonovic: We make about ten types of jams
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“I produce about ten types of jams, they are all organic, because I prepare them for my family, my children, for my friends, so when someone comes, I give them as gifts… 01:28 We have jam from plums, strawberries , apples, cranberries, pears, not to mention them all, from apricot, grapes,” she adds.
With her will to work, she aims to keep her business and family afloat. Despite this, it is not enough for Miroslavka to achieve large sales.
Simonovic: There would be sales if I could expand the business
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“There would be sales if I had the opportunity to expand the business, so the quality we make is very good, we work with grandmothers’ recipes, as they worked before, there are neither preservatives nor anything that is harmful, it is exclusively organic, we work and we would have buyers who are interested in our products to buy, but we don’t have enough capacity, we don’t have spaces where we can work, we don’t even have the equipment we need”, she says.
Even the Serbian woman from Gorazdec in Peja says that she does not have the right equipment fruit processing.
Simonović: The challenge is the difficult conditions
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“Now in these conditions it is difficult, because we do everything in a wood stove and in a cauldron where we boil it, mainly me and my husband, my husband helps me, we work together… 03:58… 4 :11 First of all, let me tell you that I really like doing this work and my wish is to pass my knowledge on to my daughter and daughter-in-law so that they can also make this healthy food. Whereas, the challenge is the difficult conditions, as I said, if I had the equipment, I would have the opportunity for many women to be employed in the production so that it becomes like a mini-production of healthy food”, said Simonovic.
Safete and Miroslavka ask the institutions for help to keep the business they started long ago. They are ready to employ other women near the villages where they live.
Note: This article was made in the framework of the project: “Promotion of women’s businesses producing healthy food”, which is implemented by the Center for Innovations and Development/CFID and financed by: Slovak Agency for Development and International Cooperation/SlovakAid.
