[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: An interesting article on Albania

[Agron Alibali]

 FT WEEKEND - THE FRONT LINE: Albania's new model army of post orphans: Yellow-jacketed motorcyclists are delivering more than mail, they're pointing the way to a more lawful country, says Simon Kuper
Financial Times; Apr 13, 2002
By SIMON KUPER




Sending a letter in Tirana, capital of Albania, is a challenge. Albanians habitually build houses without bothering to tell the authorities and so there are many streets with neither name nor official existence. Nor is the Albanian postal service the sort of lean, mean machine that might be able to deal with this.

A year ago, a big company or embassy wanting to send letters and bills would often use its own drivers. Delivery might take days - if the driver managed to find the address at all. Anyone who had a letter for Bajram Curri, capital of Albania's bandit country, probably did not bother to send it.

But now, the problem is being solved by orphans; they are pointing the way to a new, slightly more lawful Albania.

Yellow-jacketed orphans on motorcycles can these days be seen bouncing down Tirana's bumpy streets delivering the mail. This is the Youth Albania Parcel Service, or Yaps, founded by Unicef and a few big companies struggling to do business in Albania.

Being an Albanian orphan may be the hardest life in Europe. To be an orphan here means not only that your parents are dead, but that no other relative would take you in. Orphans are dumped in an unheated concrete building they call the "White House", and can seldom find work. In Albania, where nearly half the population is unemployed, people reserve jobs for their relatives.

The modern Yaps office on the fringes of Tirana has the no-nonsense efficiency of a police station on a US television show. The radio operator actually was a policeman until he was shot and became paraplegic. On his wall is a map of Tirana, but many addresses are not on it. The real map is in his head: he knows streets and buildings he has never seen.

On the day I visit it is a Muslim holiday, but even so, three couriers are hanging around the office. They like it here. Arjan, a dark-skinned 23-year-old who is both orphan and gypsy, talks me through his routine with clients. He recites it like a catechism. "I usually say, 'I am from Yaps, there is mail for me'."

Arjan gets paid by the number of items he delivers, which is good because Yaps is growing almost daily. "I have two other brothers and the three of us all eat together. I'm really keen to do as many services as possible," he says.

Arben, the manager, who speaks fluent Italian and some English (Albanians have an eerie facility for languages), is running around excitedly. After just six months, Yaps is nearing break-even point. It recently did a deal to deliver 1,000 pieces of mail a month for the US embassy.

"It's a very, very good client, American embassy. Tssh!" raves Arben.

Does it pay its bills?

"It's not a problem."

Are there any problem payers?

"Italian embassy! Three months not paying."

In February Yaps delivered more than 3,000 pieces of mail, with a peak on Valentine's day, not just because of lovers' cards and letters but because it was also the day Vodafone Albania sent out bills to its mobile-phone subscribers.

George Daniolos, executive director of Vodafone Albania, had discovered that "the Albanian post is not the best or the most reliable service". The orphans proved more energetic.

"They went around asking people in the street if they knew certain addresses. Now practically more than 95 per cent of our bills hit their target. So we know that if a bill is not paid, it is not because it was not delivered," he says. Daniolos, who began as a client of Yaps, was so impressed he joined the board.

If it appears that Yaps was founded by foreigners to serve foreigners, there is some truth in that. Albania as a whole can sometimes seem an unofficial western colony. But Yaps has a few Albanian clients and even board directors, and in terms of the country's future, they are the ones who matter.

Albanian business is barely a decade old - there was none under the communist dictator Enver Hoxha - and social business is even newer. Like early capitalists everywhere, Albanian businessmen have been more robber baron than philanthropist.

Yaps is the first social business in the country's modern history. But Marsel Skendo, chairman of ADA Holding, a Danny de Vito-lookalike who is Albania's Rupert Murdoch, says it is the start of a trend. Having made some money, Albanian businessmen now want to live in a peaceful society.

"Everybody wants to be a king, but it's impossible to be a king in a kingdom that doesn't exist. We are willing to reduce the margin of a win and to live in a softer community," says Skendo.

And the businessmen want higher social status. In Albania, fairly or not, they are not considered men of honour. But to join the board of Yaps is to bracket yourself with western companies such as Coca-Cola or KPMG, which were among the service's founders. The head of Unicef Albania, Roberto Laurenti, imagines a time when Albania and the Balkans will be full of social businesses such as Yaps.

At the White House one Sunday, the orphans are making plans. For years they have lived in this concrete building with the word "KLINTON" scrawled on the front wall, where they have to leave the doors open because of the stench from the toilets, and their only heating appliances are a couple of pet dogs. But now they are saving money. What for?

"A house," they chorus. They plan to live in it together, a family of orphans in a slightly better Albania.

* Michael Prowse is away.

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-2002



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