Brussels…you hear a lot about this important place, but it doesn’t happen every day to have the opportunity to really visit that city. Well, “Atë Pjetër Meshkalla” school won the chance to participate in one of the most important events organized from the European Economic and Social Committee, “Your Europe, Your say”. A group of four people from the school, consisting of a teacher Anejda Rragami and three students Stiven Shala, Egi Mali and Gert Rrotani, were selected among several applicants to represent the voice of the Albanian youth on the issue of “How to integrate immigrants in our societies”. The aim of this event was to make students think and propose ideas on how to facilitate the integration of the immigrants in our societies. Our group came up with the idea that the first and most important step to take would be in the field of education. Therefore, our proposal targeted the idea of trying to integrate immigrants by first learning the language which is considered to be the first and most difficult barrier of the integra-tion process and then part of local schools.
“The event was amazing and I am very satisfied with the presentation that my students gave at the conference in Brussels. Our school is well-known for the fact of generating knowledgeable, creative and smart students and as we were preparing for the presentation, since the first steps I saw that my three students had some very good and efficient ideas to present, which to me were really worth hearing. As it turned out, they were absolutely worth hearing because the members of the EESC appreciated my students’ proposal on ‘how to better integrate immigrants in our societies’. It was a unique experience and our proposal was voted as one of the best proposals presented” says the teacher, Anejda Rragami.
“Luck. It doesn’t occur very often to wander around the streets of Brussels with two of your best friends and a teacher, who is considered as one of us; to run through the airports, so that you don’t miss your flight; to reach the highest spot of Atomium and to be among the buildings, coated in gold, of Grand Place; to meet other Albanians who have another life far from home, but who have never forgotten Albanian; to walk through the halls where the politicians that rule Europe, why not the whole world, have stepped; to perform Tropoja’s traditional dance in front of a public from 32 foreign countries, and even to be thanked for the performance and the strug-gle; but the most important, to represent your whole nation for the first time in a such event, to show that this tiny Albania has an enormous potential of development, so that your say about the whole next generation of Europe and your future can be heard, to make proposals which can en-lighten Albania’s path for integration towards EU, to be appreciated in the end and to make you feel proud that you’re Albanian!” – Egi, Stiven and Gerti.
It was a wonderful experience which showed the capacity of our students to excel among 32 oth-er nationalities and it is a step forward for our school to be involved in other important events.
Being part in the same zone on which one day after the terrorist acts happened, prompted their sensitivity and solidarity to the event.
