YOUth can change the future for Kosovo

Even though 2020 has been and perhaps will always be characterized as one of the most difficult years we modern humans have faced collectively, for a small group of youngsters in Kosovo, it would be the year where they have found each other and formed an alliance in a joint mission and passion of helping the future generations, the children of their country.

The vision behind this training is to bring together members of the most vulnerable groups in the country and empower them to become the youth change-makers in their communities, hopefully, aiding in community empowerment and education overall.

Kosovo has many facets of cultural diversity, each one more fascinating than the other. At the same time, the country has many facets of welfare cross-cutting through all the diversity, however, tends to overlap with certain particularly disadvantaged ethnic groups. In this context, three of the most vulnerable communities are regarded to be the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities of the country. Given the patriarchal cultural roots in the region, even more vulnerable are the girls and women belonging to these communities. Despite social, economic, and political difficulties these communities face, we as an organization have always found the most ambitious and the most devoted young volunteers among them.

After a dynamic advertisement and promotion period, we were able to bring together a number of young volunteers from these diverse backgrounds, who expressed keenness on becoming active members and cornerstones for educational promotion within their communities. By enrolling on our training programme, these resourceful youngsters signed up to learn the cutting-edge methods of using sports activities and games for children’s education.

Our first pleasure in serving this enthusiastic group and commencing the training was in late December where we invited all the participants to meet each other and enjoy the volunteer’s day programme we had prepared for them.

Playing games and getting to know each other and the programme, the young volunteers visited the Gadime Cave, a famous natural history site of the country together. Within the atmosphere of the end of the year festivities, our young volunteers shared with us their wishes for the upcoming year.

We bet that Endrita’s words reflect the wishes of the millions of people around the world: “Seeing how 2020 has been and how it has blocked all our roads, I would love to see a 2021 free of the worries of this past year and a return to our somewhat normal lives. I wish health for all people and wish as much love, hugs, positivity and smiles as possible. I wish we only have to deal with pleasant things and the past be the past. We shall never give up!”

These 20 young volunteers will begin their training in March 2021. After being equipped with super useful and super entertaining tools, they will gather up the children in their communities and have some good, educational fun with them while promoting cooperation and mutual respect. Later this year, the whole group of youngsters dispersed all throughout the country, will come together again for a summer camp where they will be adding some more means to their set of skills which will turn them into an even more specialized young trainer for their communities.

We are immensely excited to continue growing together with our communities and are determined to maintain the shining of the light, despite all the darkness.

Thank you very much for your kind and generous support!