For many years people in Wiltshire have been supporting a Devizes-based charity that helps desperately poor families in Albania. LEWIS COWEN went to find out how the money raised here is spent.

THE Halaj family live in two sheds, small cramped flimsy structures, at the foot of the North Albanian Alps, close to the border with Montenegro.

To call them shacks would give them a romance they scarcely deserve, for the thin walls and leaking roofs have left 43-year-old Rushe Halaj and her family with a host of health problems that are slowly killing them.

Her husband, Caf, has TB and has suffered three strokes, while her 13-year-old son, Arben, has been left with a heart defect after a bout of rheumatic fever, and nine-year-old Jesmine has lung problems caused by the cold and damp.

Although they own the land they farm, less than an acre, Caf is now so ill he is unable to embark on building the house he has been planning for the last ten years.

Their plight is one of between 30 and 40 cases taken up by International Community Assist, set up ten years ago by former Army officer, David James, in his home village of Patney, near Devizes. He had invited me to visit Albania, for so long a lost land ruled by communist dictator Enver Hoxhe, where outsiders were discouraged and Albanians risked a long term in prison for trying to escape abroad.

Hoxhe died in 1985, and in 1991, his successor, Ramiz Alia, bowed to unrest and loosened the reins of power. Since then the move to democracy has been rapid and painful. In 1997 a civil war broke out, sparked by a pyramid banking scam supported by the Democratic Party government.

More than 6,000 people lost their lives amid the lawlessness of that period and violence still raises its ugly head from time to time.

The charity's main effort in Albania is providing learning opportunities for young Albanians, mainly through giving them access to computers and the Internet through specially built centres in rural areas around Shkodra.

But they also support families like the Halajs, by appealing to British families to sponsor them. The Halajs have two sponsoring families but they need something more.

Mr James said: "We are pushing the concept of self-build houses, the cost of which comes in at about £3,500. To get someone to build it for them would double the cost to £7,000. We have looked around for family or friends who would be prepared to help Caf build his house, but there is no-one.

"The ideal solution would be for a group of people to come out from Wiltshire and do the work. The travel costs are very low, thanks to low-cost airlines, and the results for the Halaj family would be spectacular."

During the summer, the Halajs live in the slightly larger of the two sheds, a lath and plaster construction about 12 feet long by six feet wide. More light comes through the holes in the roof than through the one boarded-up window.

But with temperatures dropping to minus ten degrees Celsius during the winter, the family retreats to the smaller, wooden shed covered in plastic sheeting for insulation. Inside there is a dirt floor and in this tiny space, measuring six feet by three feet, they eat, sleep and wash.

There is no electricity and no water. Water is bought in 100 litre containers, each costing a week's wages. There was a scheme to bring piped water to the region by pumping it up the mountain from Lake Shkodera and distributing it by gravity along a 28km network of pipes.

An Arab bank agreed to fund the project but the Turkish firm they employed to lay the pipes disappeared from the scene, along with most of the money.

So Caf and his family will continue to fetch their water from a visiting tanker until official bureaucracy and private corruption manage to balance each other long enough to achieve a community gain.

Mr James said: "I would particularly like to know where the money from the European Union is going.

"The EU invests a lot of money in Albania, this we know. But it doesn't seem to filter down to the level of Caf and Rushe.

"Where is it going? I firmly believe that the EU money doesn't reach the poor because there are no civil servants to administer the funds.

"ICA supports students who will, hopefully, one day become the administrators the country so badly needs."

If anyone is interested in volunteering to help in Albania, either helping the Halajs to build their house, teaching English as a foreign language or basic computer skills, contact ICA on (01380) 840990 or email icauk@btopenworld.com