Contact - Next Generation Albania

“And I saw that people here are not stupid. People are not bad. People are just manipulated by so many things, that are so complex, that so many things have happened to them that they have the right to doubt in everyone, to not believe, to be sceptical, to be nihilist, to be whatever they might be.”

“One thing that really hurts me in Albania is the faith and how much people believe in each other, in politics, in God, in everything. I think we find ourselves a little bit hopeless in these times. And this is one thing that I really feel, and I don't know what I could do about this, but it's something that really, really makes me sad.”

“Activism is probably one of the best ways to address these issues we face every day. It's like a step forward, doing something against that thing that is making your life hard every day, for no proper reason.”

“When you are alone, you don't think that you can actually bring a change or do something. You feel weak, you might become a target. But when you have a group, when you have a community, it empowers you."

“I really hope at this point to grow more and more to create these connections between students and to create this trust between each other, this unity that people will finally know that we are not trying just to make ourselves at a position where we can sell ourselves more.”

“I'm still perceived as this person who can find trouble everywhere where she is. So, activism has affected my life a great deal, with good meaning, but also in ways that make it difficult to live under these conditions, because we cannot be self-sufficient.”

“The hope remains because it stays with the people, I would just want to be there and see and taste and feel the things that are changing. My hope doesn't rely on the many manifestations of evil and corruption and forms of distrust that exist in Albania and on social media.”

“With the right opportunities and the right resources, the Albanian youth shine. I think this can be a way, when political forces decentralize and there comes maybe a young, inspiring leader that has all these new plans, people will get their hope back.”

“I made peace with myself that the changes that we are trying to bring may not happen in this lifetime, but at least we can leave something from that for the other generations that will come. So, they do not start from zero. They have some solid grounds where they can step on and continue the work that we left.”

"Nothing happens in an eyelid, nothing happens now. You have to do your best and probably in the future, people are going to continue your path. As me and my comrades are doing in the path of other women in history and other people who fought against injustices.”

"We could do better and I think we will achieve that in an amount of 20 years or something. It won’t enjoy my youth, but my kids will enjoy theirs. Because Albania has so much potential,"

“Everybody is leaving. And and that's a shame because, well, we're going to a country that was built to be that way and have those opportunities because the young people were resilient and stayed there and made it happen, which is what should happen here. But it will never happen. If the best of us go, because the best of us go nobody wants the worst of us.”

“I believe in freedom. Yeah. I would like to believe in freedom, but it's impossible with everything I've seen and gone through.”

“Albanians still don’t have the courage to move. We have to move out of our small society comfort zone.”

“We have people who have a passion for talking about change. And they have these great ideas about what they can do better but they just don't know how to.”

“I think the biggest problem with teens is their lack of stability in their beliefs and their guidance. I think an overall sense of guidance is lacking, you know, not just in education”

“I would also like to point out that us teenagers were never actually given a right example of democracy. So even the concept of democracy is highly confusing to some sort of point because it will associate democracy to Albanians current status, which is formally democracy. But practically speaking, it's lacking a lot of democratic aspects or prospects”

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Couple of Insights

What our participants expressed