By Edona Lubovci (YES 2018-2019, Kosovo, hosted by American Councils in Burleson, TX)

As a City Representative, coming up with project ideas can be quite challenging.  I am always looking to implement something that will have a meaningful impact on my community, based on my experience as an exchange student and YES alumna. Thinking about my amazing year in the United States, I realized how important learning English was for me. I believe that my skill-level in English was one of the deciding factors of me becoming a YES student, which has been one of the most formative experiences of my life. Therefore, I decided to organize a project to teach youth in rural areas how important English is and how it can change their lives. Youth growing up in small villages don’t have the same opportunities that their counterparts in big cities do, so I think it’s important for them to be included in our projects and activities.

I went to Rogove, a village near Prizren, and met with two teachers from Haxhi Hoti Elementary School. Together, we prepared a lesson for 26 kids in grades six and seven. All of them were very excited to be doing something different from their normal school routine. Before the beginning of the lesson, I took some time to present about the YES program and talk about my experience in the United States. After that I took some time to get to know the students, who were clearly very passionate about learning English. The teachers and I helped them write a short essay in English and present it in front of the class.  Getting to see how excited they were to learn about English made me happy about all the work we do for our community. As their short-term English teacher, I can’t wait to see them as future YES students someday!