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Discussing Human Rights and Anti-Corruption in Kosovo

Kosova Prishtina Human Rights And Anti Corruption Workshop Organized By Malsore Jusufi And Gentian Kuqica As An Ideal Follow Up Project

By Malsore Jusufi (YES 2014-2015, Kosovo, hosted by American Councils PO in Saint Louis, MO)

On February 23-24, Gentian Kuqica (YES 2015-2016, Kosovo, hosted by AFS in Ashville, OH) and I organized a two-day workshop in Prishtina. The themes of the workshop were human rights and anti-corruption.

The reason why we wanted to organize such a workshop is that we believe that the first step to change is knowledge. Unfortunately, human rights and strategies to address corruption do not get discussed much in our country, especially among the youth. This is the exact reason why our target group was youth ages 16 to 22. Participants selected for the workshop had different educational backgrounds but all shared the goal of gaining more knowledge and making a change in their communities.

On the first day of the workshop, we had three different speakers. Participants were introduced to the concept of human rights by Dita Dobranja, a civil society activist and advanced researcher on women’s economic empowerment. She is also an alumna of the Scholarships and Partnerships component of USAID Kosovo’s Transformational Leadership Program and served as a mentor for the IDEAL Workshop for YES and FLEX alumni in 2017. Local activist Linda Gjokaj then shared her story about creating the “Pay My Internship” social media campaign to raise awareness about youth exploitation in the workforce and to advocate for paid internships. The day closed with Jehona Shala, a successful business owner, discussing issues of gender discrimination in the business field.

On the second day, Blerta Visoka, a student of political science, taught the group about corruption and how to use youth activism to combat it. Her presentation began by defining what corruption is and how it is viewed in society, and ended with asking participants to consider what they can do to reduce corruption in their communities. Later on, the participants conducted surveys in Prishtina. These surveys contained questions about corruption, with the goal of understanding how citizens in the capital city of Kosovo see this issue. Participants gathered very interesting answers from different people who were surveyed. For instance, when one survey participant was asked if he considers a particular case as corruption he said, “Corruption occurs when you pay someone more than 500 Euros; otherwise it is not.”

As the second day approached its end, the participants became more comfortable sharing their opinions in a group setting. The group discussed how they can employ the survey results and the training in their own home communities to ultimately limit corruption. 

Gentian and I  firmly believe that this workshop impacted a lot of people for the better, and helped inform the youth in our country.


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