Our work in bridging the knowledge and understanding gap between countries of Eastern and Western Europe sparked ThinkYoung to work in Kosovo. Our project “Advocacy for Young People in Kosovo” was motivated by a broad set of goals and thus included a multi-faceted set of activities.
Visiting a country where more than 50% of the population is under 25 years old gave us a lot of food for thought regarding what foreign citizens can do in Kosovo to help young people in Kosovo have access to better opportunities in Europe than those they have now.
We wanted to explore with our own eyes what kind of needs we could address with our expertise.
The success in meeting these goals as well as the engagement of a diverse range of individuals and civil society and political actors has led us to launch Sustainable Kosovo.
Our team is engaged in the Kosovo project in pursuit of the following goals:
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To make Young Europeans aware of the current situation of their peers who live in Kosovo;
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To lobby the European institutions in order to obtain easier visa conditions for young people from Kosovo who want to study or work in Europe.
The Kosovo Project has included the following activities:
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July 2009: A workshop for young entrepreneurs during the meeting of the student entrepreneurship network, the European Confederation of Junior Enterprise (JADE) in Prishtina.
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February 2010: An essay competition amongst young Kosovars. The prize for this competition was a paid internship at the ThinkYoung offices in Brussels.
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July 2010: Shooting of documentary “A po vjen n’Prishtine? – Wanna Come to Prishtina?” in Prishtina, by ThinkYoung in Collaboration with Graffito Film.
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September 2010: two surveys on comparative opinions to do with the EU, European integration and visa liberation; one amongst citizens of EU member states and the other amongst citizens of Kosovo. To see these survey results, please click here.
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October 2010: Publication of selected essays from the competition in “Promising Kosovo”.
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January 2011: Kosovo Conference at Google.be offices in Brussels.
Presentation of survey results and conclusions; film screening of “A
po vjen n’Prishtine? – Wanna Come to Prishtina?”; panel discussion with
Ilir Dugolli, Ambassador of Kosovo to Belgium, Ulrike Lunacek, MEP to
Green Party, Alexandra Stiglmayer, Policy Analyst at the European
Stability Intiative. Please see the following presentation for more
details about the project and ways to participate and sponsor:
Find more details at the project website Kosovo Young
Advocacy for Young Kosovars 2010 in the Media:
INA
ILIRIA NEWS AGENCY, 18 June 2010
LINDITA
KOMANI BLOG, January 2010