3. Enlighten the Darkness

INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK OF ENLIGHTEN THE DARKNESS ACTIVIST GROUP

            For two months we have been working on creating the group called Enlighten the Darkness.

On 26 of May we created this group in order to raise awareness in our community of Middle Town, Albania.

We focus on the chances that visually impaired students have in regular education system.

We  are raising this issue because the statistics show that in Albania more than 3 % of the population have this physical disability and in our town is 2 % of the 100.000 inhabitants. In Middle Town only 1% of them go to regular school and this means that are only 1000 students. According to the Law of Education number 26/2001, every child has equal chances to education system. In addition to that, according to the Law on Rights of the handicapped persons, the law number 448/2004, every person with disabilities has a right to one assistant to help.

We hold responsible for not implementing this laws local branch of Minister of Education and the National Authority for Handicapped People.

Our goal is to make them to respect the law and provide the implementation of assistance for the      handicapped people. By the calculations, if the state invest a small amount of money now for handicapped people's assistance, they are going to get included in society.

Enjoy the video!

Activist from Enlighten the Darkness

PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE ACTIVIST GROUP ENLIGHTEN THE DARKNESS

After creating the group we had two months to organize a press conference in order to raise awareness about this issue.

We organized the press conference in Middle Town and we invited the local media where we presented a promo video about the gravity of this issue. At the conference our spokesperson, Martina Kyjakova, and other activists talked about this issue. We invited a visually impaired student, Ljubica Slepcevic, with her mother, Daniela Slepcevic, to tell their story on this topic. At the end of the press conference, materials where handed over to the representatives of the local media.

Here is video from press conference.

Activist from Enlighten the Darkness

DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT PROBLEMS OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE IN MIDDLE TOWN

Our activist group Enlighten the Darkness decided to film a short documentary. Our activists went into the streets to interview the general public of Middle Town on their opinion for the chances of visually impaired persons  have for regular education system.

We also interviewed a blind student who has to deal with this problem on daily basis.

This documentary film is showing the importance of dealing with this kind of issue because it is really important for our society to start to include the excluded ones.


Here is our documentary, feel free to leave a comment.

Activist from Enlighten the Darkness

PUBLIC FORUM AND PETITION SIGNING 

In a period of one month we have also organised a public forum where we presented our press conference video. After the video was shown, our group’s spokesperson, Martina Kyjakova, presented the petition to the members of the local community. Petition was addressed to  Mr. Fargo Levici, the member of town council for the education. Some questions were raised by members of local community during the discussion after the presentation. Group’s spokesperson answered the questions using relevant data. The petition was signed by several people.  At the end, Martina invited people to sign petition on our blog and said it will be handed to the Mr. Fargo Levici in two weeks from now.

Here is online petition for You to sign.

Activist from Enlighten the Darkness

Fargo Levici                                                                                           Enlighten the Darkness

Member of town council for the education                                             Activist group

According to the Law on Petitions 26/2001, we are delivering this

PETITION

Activist group Enlighten the Darkness with the citizens of the Middle Town, Albania, would like to raise the following issue – blind students are excluded from regular education system because the state does not provide proper assistance.

Statistics show that 3% of population of Albania are visually impaired. There is 2% of visually impaired in Middle Town and only 1% of them are going to regular schools. Population of Middle Town is 100 000 citizens, which means that only 10 students attend regular schools in this town.

According to the Law on Education 24/2004, every child has an equal right to education on every level. Also, according to the Law on People with disabilities 11/2005, every person with physical disability has an right to have a personal assistant.

We address this petition to Mr. Fargo Levici, member of the town council for the education.

Please, fulfil Your responsibility according to the previously mentioned laws and provide the assistance for the visually impaired students in the Middle Town.

Thank You for the support.

Number	First name	Last name	ID number	Contact	Signature
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

MEETING WITH THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES

For the past two months, our activist group Enlighten the Darkness was intensively preparing for a meeting with the local authorities. On 30^th October we had a meeting with the authorities in order to discuss about our problem in Middle Town, Albania. That is about the chances of the visually impaired people to access education in regular schools. According to the legislation, they have a right to an assistant for each person.  We meet the local responsible from National Authority for Handicapped People,  Mr. Jack Daniels,  and the responsible for education at local level, Mr. Levin Kline. On behalf of the activist group, we had leader, Ivana Krosic, spokespersons Jonut and Daniela Legzy, lawyer, Alexandra Somic, and psychologist Martina Martinovic.

Representatives from the activist group Enlighten the Darkness

                The authorities handled the situation with ignorance and arrogance. They denied their responsibility and insisted on that there is an assistant in schools. They told us that there is no funding  for the visually impaired people because the Minister of Education has cut 25% off from the local budget. According to our information and research, the funds from the budget were given by the Minister of Education last year.

                The discussion was inefficient because they were unwilling to accept and respect their responsibility. We also handed them our petition, signed by 300 people, and they promised us an answer in 30 days. If they don’t respect their promise, we will go again and again until we have a successful result.

In the heat of the meeting

The group Enlighten the Darkness will not give up until the law is implemented by the responsible authorities. We thank you for your support and you are welcome to comment.

Activists from Enlighten the Darkness