ACTIVATE – OBESSU Study Visit in Kosovo
The first OBESSU Study Visit of 2014 took place in Pristina, Kosovo in mid-April. The focus of the Study Visit was not only getting to know each other as organisations and exchanging ideas between OBESSU and the Student Council of Kosovo (KNK), but also exploring school student participation in post-conflict areas. The Study Visit was supported by the Kosovar Youth Council.
OBESSU Board member Daša and Magda from our Pool of Trainers facilitated two days of workshops in the European Union Information and Culture Center (EUICC) in Pristina for 15 school student activists from all around Kosovo. The topics of the weekend included democracy and school student structures, different forms of participation, school student rights and advocacy.
Both OBESSU and Kosovar school student representatives were eager to learn as much as possible about each other. When discussing and analysing many areas of school student activism and participation, we did not try to re-invent the wheel but we looked at the materials we already have. Once we knew more about each other, we tried to analyse the situation in Kosovo with the ladder of participation and questioned our perception of our involvement and level of participation in our realities. We also looked at how we can run school student unions and school student councils, how to organise meetings or how to approach other stakeholders and media with the help of OBESSU’s Manual for School Students, which was welcomed by the participants.
Quite a heavy day, what do you say? But we were not done yet! What is the best way to spend Saturday evening? Watching the Light on the Rights Bus Tour documentary with lots of popcorn!
Since the visit was only two days long, we made sure that both days were full of useful and interesting workshops. School student rights and an interesting discussion on whether some rights are more important than others, and discussing whether we should have to prioritise school student rights and give up some rights for the others, opened the second day of the training. This all lead us to the introduction of the Declaration of School Student Rights.
Unfortunately, even if we know how to lead a dialogue with other stakeholders and authorities, it is not always possible or efficient, and so with the help of an entertaining game, we dived into various forms of protests and demonstrations. To round it all up using all the knowledge, best practices and experiences, we practiced our advocacy skills and by using real examples, we prepared advocacy plans which ensured us that as school students, we are strong and our voice matters.
The weekend ended with collecting all the ideas from the two days together and planning the next steps. The Study Visit did not only help the school student activists to develop their activities locally and nationally, but we also hope to encourage and strengthen the international co-operation between school students in Kosovo and elsewhere in Europe.
