A jury awarded prizes to the best projects presenting the views of the students on what the EU means to them, and what they regard as advantages and disadvantages of integration into the EU family
TIRANA TIMES
TIRANA, June 12 – “Talking Europe, Living Europe” a one-year project implemented by House of Europe, an NGO focusing on EU integration, came to an end this week after successfully providing high school students in Tirana with the necessary information on the EU, and Albania’s European integration process.
The project supported Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Albania was implemented in three high schools in Tirana, and targeted high school students in their final year. The high schools involved in the project were “Sami Frasheri”, “Petro Nini Luarasi”, and the Technical Economic School. In a concluding conference held Monday, June 11, a jury awarded prizes to the best projects presenting the views of the students on what the EU means to them, and what they regard as advantages and disadvantages of integration into the EU family.
The jury decided to award the first prize to the project prepared by Dhoksina Papa, Matina Cobo, and Renis Sheshi from “Petro Nini Luarasi” high school.
In addition, the jury decided to hand over two special awards to Armand Veizi, Brenda Kociu, and Kejsi Shehu from “Sami Frasheri”, as well as to Shpresa Hyseni, Semirilda Aliko and Flori Prifti from the Technical Economic High School of Tirana.
The panel presiding over the project’s concluding ceremony included deputy Minister of Education Nora Malaj, the head of Political, Economic and Information section at the EU delegation in Albania, Clive Rumbold, Program Coordinator at FES Albania Jonida Smaja, as well as Valbona Jaupllari and Alba Cela from the House of Europe.
Certificates were handed out at the end of the activity to all students who had participated in the project.
The project’s first phase involved the engagement of school directors and class teachers. One lecture and one study visit for each graduating class was arranged.
While many efforts from the Ministry of Integration and a multitude of NGOs in Albania have targeted different segments of the population with the aim of informing them and involving them in the process of European integration, high schools students have been generally neglected and left behind, House of Europe representatives say.
General support for the EU remains at a high level, but there is the risk of young people becoming passive about the integration process especially now that the free movement, an all time strong incentive for Albanian support to EU, has become a reality and has ceased to motivate the public.
“High school students need to understand the simple truth that Europe is not boring. The integration process offers them benefits in terms of education and civic engagement that they need to exploit. This project was meant as a start to building up that knowledge and that enthusiasm by a series of lively activities formatted to attract this age group,” project representatives added.
