The EducWeb/ Kosovo Project : Status On December 1st, 2000

Context

EducWeb is not a formal organization, but only a personal project. Thanks to all the friends around the world who help me keep it alive - especially to :

Faket Ahmetaj, Maddalena Basevi, Kimete Basha, Idriz Blaku, Jill Cerqueira, Anne de Villepin, Visare Gashi, Isabelle Grévisse, Georges Hoyos, Paul Hermant, Martine Lefin, Pascal Martin, Colette Mazzucelli, Benoît Melebeck, Marc-André Peltzer, Patrice Poitevin, Riccardo Rossi-Ricci, Watts Rozell, Afërdita Spahiu, Paul Vigneront, Jean-Paul Vogels and Dominique-Eve Weil.

Also, many thanks to Les Editions De Boeck  and to Le Soir for their sponsoring of the project.

Our Objective

• to create a network of schools, educators or individuals, who are interested in participating in the reconstruction of the Education System in Kosovo, and the establishment of  democracy in that part of the World.
• Primarily, we want to provide students and teachers with a solid, objective, up-to-date and adapted documentation on Kosovo. 
• For those who wish to go further, we want to establish a communication process between Kosovar schools and other schools around the world. Once a communication has been established, we hope that it can evolve towards a decision of formally "twinning" the two schools.

Project milestones

1. July 99 : the  initial proposal for what will become the EducWeb/ Kosovo project is put on the web
2. October 99 : participation (together with Colette Mazzucelli and other speakers) to the first Interactive conference on Kosovo (in English) organized by Watts Rozell (Kosovo Connection) with the help of IECC
3. October 99 : participation in Global Learning Day (GLD III) organized by John Hibbs (Benjamin Franklin Institute)
4. December 99 : first trip to Kosovo; contacts with many schools, especially in Gjakova, Cabra and Gllarevë where we meet Shqipe
5. January 00 : definition of a new format for the next interactive conference, based on a 3-4 month continuing process to improve active involvement by participating schools
6. March 00 : interactive part of the conference : selected experts provided answers to more than 400 questions from 82 schools in Belgium.
7. May 00 : post-conference activities; inter-school contest sponsored by two private companies (De Boeck - Le Soir) and the Belgian ministers of education (St François d'Assises Tubize; Ecole de Moxhe )
8. August 00 : Jill Cerqueira and her students from Holmdel, NJ, USA decide to engage in a twinning process with two schools in Kosovo : one Serb, and one Albanian.
9. October 00 : second trip to Kosovo; coverage of the first democratic elections ever organized in that part of the world; contacts with a school of Roma/ Ashkali refugees in Plemetina and with the primary school in Obiliq (probably the only school in whole Kosovo where the same school building is shared between the Serb- and the Albanian communities). Our project gets full support by Maddalena Basevi (ICS ONG) and by Dominique-Eve Weil (UNMIK Obiliq); contact with UNICEF in Prishtina.
10. November 00 : a primary school in Belgium (Ecole de Moxhe) decides to twin with Plemetina
11. November 00 : proposal for support of our project by Visare Gashi (OHCHR : UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights) in Prishtina.
12. December 00 : creation of Lipjan.com / Lipljan.com in support of a local project by Riccardo Rossi-Ricci, (UNMIK-Lipjan). The site will be developed by two young Kosovars (one Albanian, one Serb) assisted by Riccardo, Visare and by EducWeb).
13. December 00 : proposal by Patrice Poitevin (RCMP : Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to help us in the Lipjan / Lipljan project  in the context of their DEAL program for youth

Ongoing Actions

1. Purchase of books in Albanian for the school in Gllareve; this project is financed by the Parent's committee of the International School in Brussels (Anne de Villepin). Books are expected to be delivered in Gllareve before Christmas
2. Development of pedagogical material to support the communication between the Plemetina and Moxhe schools. Since students in these schools do not speak a common language, they will communicate by drawings (based on common scenarios highlighting things and values that all children have in common). Once developed and tested in this project, scenarios are expected to be used repetitively by other schools using the same framework - in Kosovo and/or other countries)
3. Continuing support for the Lipjan/ Lipljan project

Future Actions

1. Further action to help the two schools in Obiliq (Serb, Albanian) to establish communications with schools in democratic countries
2. Further action to twin the Gllareve school
3. When possible, specific action to help the school in Cabra
4. Extension of the Lipjan/ Lipljan project concept to other places in Kosovo