Successes of Implementation

The project has arrived at the stage when the schools propose little projects of their own in the field of peace and disarmament education and we provide the resources for it. To facilitate it and to make the opportunities as open as possible, we have created a mini-project application form through which the pupils, teachers, or any constituency that we work with can apply. We have also trained the main groups we work with in project application and implementation. This way we insure horizontal and participatory approach to our peace education, and prevent dominant individuals from usurping the process.

Nationally, we managed to convince the ministry of education to recommend our manuals to schools all the Albania. The Albanian vice-minister of Education, Mrs. Saemira Pino, is very positive toward our project, and has recommended our “Learning to Abolish War” book to the schools in Albania. 500 copies of our books were donated to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry is taking care of the distribution to the various schools. She also suggested that I write an article in the national newspaper “the teacher”, to introduce the project and the book—I will send them the article in the next week or so.

Two of the debate club pupils that just began the debating a few months ago are now leading the debate group, and one of them, Ina Idrizi has won the “Best Speaker” award at the national debate competition, the highest one in the debates.