WOULD SCHOOL BE ENDURED IF IT WASN’T FOR FRIENDS?
The need for spaces and extra curricular activities.
Illustration: Argjira Kukaj
The everyday life of high school students in Kosova is boring. Everything within is old, starting from the infrastructure, the text books which are primitive and often discriminatory and the sexual predator professors. Students have to put up with all of these every day, and this surely affects their development. All these problems have made some students become harassers.
The many cases of sexual harassment exposed throughout this year, encouraged many reactions in the public opinion, set the voice of the revolution free. The protest “Trauma not a Game” while being a protest against sexual harassment, was the result of all the discontent with the education system. The revolt that students had been keeping inside for a long while was finally released in that protest. The publication of a video showing sexual harassment, pushed high school students from Prishtina to get together and discuss about the possibility of organizing a protest where their voice would be heard.
Problems and struggles in the organizing of this protest, from lacking a space to prepare banners, were solved by ORCA. They offered their space which is dedicated to citizen organizations. In this space, the writing of banners was sometimes followed by discussions regarding issues in education and other times by music. This made the organizing of this protest more attractive from what we had previously known.
Organizing this protest pushed me to be a part of all activities related to student activism. Even though I was just a high school student I participated in ORCA’s “Congress for student activism”, where I got the idea to establish a movement of high school students. Together with some friends, we would meet every day throughout the months of July-September to discuss what the student representation lacked. We even organized workshops in ORCA’s space. After two months of discussions and work, in September we established the Union of High School Students of Kosova.
The union is a representative movement which aims to protect student interests and present them through activism. To establish the Union, we needed to unite students through a leader. Students leaders of schools were invited and each agreed that this is a movement we should work on. After the establishment we began meeting on a regular basis in this space which we felt free to call our own.
This is just one example of how unavoidable it is to have extracurricular activities and spaces which expand our ideas, so that in the future they can be shaped and bring positive change.
About the author: Denis Krasniqi studies at “Ahmet Gashi” High School
This grant is supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
