The colours of the rainbow are all beautiful

Together with the Ministry of Education, teachers and parents, World Vision in Korça area development programme, Albania organised an activity with “Naim Frasheri” school and “Lulet e Vogla” kindergarten, to celebrate “International Day of the Roma people”. They highlight the fact that these children need and deserve to integrate into society and treated as equals. In front of local media and government representatives, children shared that “All children all over the world are different, but they are the same in rights!”. Both the school and the kindergarten have more than 400 students of Roma ethnicity.

“Our aim is to bring the parents more close to the school and together with them we could collaborate for the well-being of these children’s future,” said the Vice director of the school, Mrs. Mevlude Isallari. “It is not easy to do that,” she adds.“But, just looking at these children’s happy faces drives us work harder for them to help them have a better tomorrow.”

The activity consisted of two parts. During the first part, children and their parents cooked and shared ameal together in school with the teachers as a signof a more collaborative and close relationship withone another.  During the second part of the activity, children handed out leaflets as an awareness sign to the passersby about the importance of education focusing more in the education of girls and their early marriage.

“Early marriages are a tradition for girls here, but it should be different. We must and need to be educated because otherwise we will end up becoming like our parents, unable to write and read,” says Franeska, 14, a Roma child, part of student government in this school.  “But times are changed and education now is so fundamental to find a job and live with integrity,” she added.

 “These children deserve to get educated and our goal, as World Vision, is to raise awareness them among their parents of the impotence of it,” says Stela Viso the World Vision Korça team. “We will to do our best to help them to get more integrated into the society and make them feel cared for by the community they live in,” she ended.

At the end of the day, children came together through volleyball and basketball gamesas a sign that children deserve to play and enjoy their childhood. On the other hand, the little children played a game with candy. They divided in groups and chose different colours of candy. At the end of the game, children mixed the candy expressing that “we are the same, we are children”.

“All children together are like the rainbow’s colours, different but beautiful,” said the children in one voice.