Tirana, Albania—UPF-Albania and affiliated organizations held a project titled “Young People Co-Design the Cities and Future of Europe.”
The goal of the project was to bring together youth leaders from Albania, Kosovo and other European nations to redesign three public spaces in Tirana and offer the designs to the Tirana City Hall, with the hope that they will be implemented in the future.
The project developed from Tirana being chosen as the European Youth Capital for 2022. The National Youth Council, in cooperation with Tirana Municipality, at the end of 2021 launched a call for project proposals. As a result, many projects with a focus on youth have been organized, covering the fields of art, culture, politics, public spaces, innovation, etc.
UPF-Albania, in partnership with UPF-Kosovo as well as two affiliated organizations, Youth and Students for Peace (YSP) of Austria and Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) of Albania, applied and won the project to redesign Tirana public spaces.
Finally, 20 youth leaders from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Austria, Moldova, Venezuela and the Czech Republic gathered in Tirana on August 19 to begin working together on redesigning three public spaces.
Once the participants arrived in Albania, they received training on the history and architecture of Tirana by the project adviser, Associate Professor Dr. Armand Vokshi, the dean of architecture at the Polytechnical University of Tirana.
The project team had established a very good relationship with the Directorate of Urbanization of Tirana Municipality, which greatly supported the project and sent three architects for five days to assist the teams in producing their designs.
Bogdan Pammer, the Europe-Middle East president of International Association of Youth and Students for Peace (IAYSP), gave several lectures on Peace Design, making a natural connection of the external goal of the project, designing public spaces, with the internal goal, gaining peace within oneself and with other people.
For the first two days, the teams visited the public spaces on site, where they also interviewed people in the area. For the remaining days, the teams worked hard on their designs.
On the last full day, August 27, the designs were presented to an audience of 120 at the Peace Embassy. Ambassadors for Peace, representatives from City Hall and the National Youth Council, along with other young people, gathered to see the results of these 20 youth leaders’ investment.
The event became a celebration, combining the presentation of designs with artistic performances. Of course, the highlight of the event was the appointment of the youth leaders as Youth Ambassadors for Peace from YSP.
It was a wonderful experience for all project participants and staff. In a very short time, they came up with beautiful designs for three public spaces, which were considered very professional by architects and urbanists. Already Tirana City Hall has asked for two of the designs to be sent to them as they will consider implementing them in the near future.
A video showcasing some of the main activities can be found here:
https://fb.watch/fLMU_LRTPB/
An interview on national TV (in Albanian) of Gani Rroshi, the project coordinator, explaining about the whole project can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOtO4PE1C8
A national news television channel, FAXNEWS, prepared a short program about the project as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YGeS4bmivc&ab_channel=FaxNewsAlbania
