Albanian Student Government children come together to design a better future for themselves and their communities

School, knowledge, development! We are children and we have the sun in our hearts which we want to light up! This was the slogan, voiced and designed by the children of the Albanian student government during a four-day Student Government Conference, hosted recently by World Vision’s education programme.

Around 220 children, representatives of student governments from all areas of Albania where World Vision works (accompanied by teachers, community mobilizer and parents) gathered together in one place. They had shared goals: to learn from each other as well as to share and celebrate their initiatives and successes after a whole year of determined work, trying to put into practice the child-friendly school system—a model implemented by World Vision two years ago.  

Remembering what schools were like before this model was implemented; children recalled how their educational life used to be surrounded by problems that were obvious to everyone. “[None] of us took a big step forward to do something to change the situation,” one child said, recalling their success confronting such problems as: schools with no libraries or books; problems with gender balance; damaged roads or lack of gym facilities.

The children noticed these problems but they did not know, at that time, what to do nor did they have the right information about how to raise their voices and partner with the school board to work together to change the situation. Today, thanks to what they learned through World Vision’s Child-Friendly School system, they know exactly how to act.

“Children are those who first notice something that is not going right in school, but although we are ‘just children’ [as other, adults, call us] we can do more than is expected from children to do,” says Daniela, 15, from Bathore suburb, part of World Vision Albania’s Tirana Area development Programme. “So far we [have been] collaborating with our school board to pave lots of school issues and reach results, but there are many others to settle down,” she continues.

“These challenges are like mountains in our eyes. We have to climb every day and take even other people with us, to follow in this journey. But, I am sure, mountain by mountain, we will see that a lot is yet to be done and other mountains are yet to climb. But, our voice is strong and our desire, even stronger. I know and feel we can achieve more than we already have!” Daniela ends, looking up to the sky.

A child -friendly school, among other things, relates to the rights that every student should have better, healthy school conditions; quality of education; inclusion; protection; to know how to act during a natural catastrophe; to respect gender balance in school, and for children to be active and competent at raising their voices and participating in decision making. At the same time, children must partner with parents and the school board to achieve these goals.

However, the students were convinced that nothing is easy where you are the first “Magellan” crossing the new paths. But, the children have had the chance to learn a lot during the past two years. Additionally, by coming together in the conference, they clarified even deeper their ideas and vision.

Now, they have a clear plan. “Here, we learned that collaboration and working as a team always helps reach even the impossible goals, and now we know [that] only by staying together in one mind we can move forward,” said the children, in one voice.

On the second day, children learned how to create debate clubs and discussed different topics, including the importance and the risks of the internet as well as other school issues which affect them the most. “This is so needed and a great start for us to do this in our school,” chanted the children, challenging  themselves to be better debaters, to improve their abilities to point out their school’s problems then to talk them through and sort them out using and build their essential life skills, like communication and critical thinking  

The next phase is for these children to lead and train lots of other children to do the same.  It was not hard to notice that many of the children at the conference, although they were small, were full of energy, clear vision, and big dreams. They were willing in their hearts to work hard and change their school’s reality for the well- being of their classmates, their friends and the future generations.

“I encourage children to participate in these student governments because they are going to feel so wonderfully,” says Daniel, 8, an enthusiastic child from Vlora. “We have shared lots of information, experiences, and problems here and are also learning more [about] how to confront them,” he continues, describing his impressions and the meaning the conference had on him.

The conference continued with dancing and entertainment and a time where a group of celebrities: Albanian football players from both male and female national teams joined the children. Students asked them a lot of questions related to gender, balance in football and life, how to reach big dreams although they look far away, among others.  

One of the celebrities, Erjon Bogdani, shared his personal of achieving success: by following his passion and finding his purpose. “Always love education and be great in school,” he said. “But, never stop following on your dreams, although sometimes it can be not ease to reach them,” he encouraged.

While mentioning the successes they had achieved, children also shared the challenges they faced over the year and carefully looked back on their past journey, as well as looking forward in order to fix and do better work to reach what they had not achieved yet.

At the end of the conference, children broke into groups according to the city they belonged to. Each group painted in a flag the idea of how they see and want a child-friendly school to be like. “A beautiful and safe school, this is what we want,” chanted the children of Durres while painting up the poster and talking to one another about what to add to make it more meaningful.

“We designed this flag as it will be a real map to orient us to follow and reach our coming plans,” says Guri Vladi, 14, a student from Bathore. “This flag symbolizes even our friendship with each other [as well as] collaboration and initiatives we have and will take for the wellbeing of our communities. By staying together, we know we can be a great power as the power is very important for student government. We should be more active and full of passion to achieve our goals. And this [is] not for our egos but for our country,” he ended.

 “These children have the right potential and great ideas to make real the initiatives. They propose and we [the teachers] have been just a bridge between them and the school,” says Aida Lumshi, one of the school directors of Elbasan area. “I think they have done a lot and have gained the school board’s trust and respect. I truly think they are forward lookers and brave enough to do more and more,” she said.

“This conference brought these children together to share their experiences, challenges and their desire to collaborate to achieve more.” said Brisida Jahaj, World Vision’s Education Manager.” We aim to help them [so] that the energy and passion these children brought to the conference can be used to do more wonderful things [in addition to what] they have done so far. What makes us feel amazed is that these students don’t feel satisfied only with what they learn in their school, but they want to explore and do more—big and sustainable things with their own hands—and we are here to answer to their call, to empower them to be a change in their communities,” Brisida ended.

This is only the starting of this initiative World Vision implemented the past year. Other similar activates will be coming soon which aim to further empower these students to be leaders of today and a strong voice in their community and schools.

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