This school is another significant example. We can and will do together what we want, together for you and the Albania we want!
The other Albania needs what we are here today for, and which will continue to do every day in order to make state, to have an Albania that works, where people work for each other, where the state works for the people, where people work for themselves and for the country in order to ensure prosperity.
Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the inauguration of the special school “Luigj Gurakuqi”:
Hello everybody!
Let me convey first of all my gratitude and respect for the team of this school, for its committed principal, an old friend of mine whom I had the pleasure to meet after many years, for all the teachers and the service staff. I believe that the wage increase has come at the right moment for all of you. But above all I am glad that we managed to have a wage increase as never before, for the whole supporting staff, for the women, mothers, daughters, but also for the men who ensure hygienic conditions, the logistic, for every activity carried out by our state employees in every institution, in every school, in every kindergarten, in every day care.
This wage increase is a lot compared with the Albania we had, but it is not enough for our ambition for the Albania we want.
The same, I can say out and loud that a lot has been done for the people in need compared with the Albania we had.
The Albania we had was a country where the state was on its own and minded its own business, read here the business of those in power, of those who held the keys of the offices, and where the self-employed people running a small business, or those who had been involved since long in the adventure of a large business, were on they own and in order to have a contact with the state, they absolutely needed to find somebody who held the key of the office, somebody who held the key to the solution.
The average people of this country were also on their own. The people in a wheelchair who would spent days and nights in front of the Prime Ministry were on their own; – they were there not to obtain something they didn’t have, but just to make sure that what they were entitled to, hence the disability pension, wouldn’t take months to be paid. Also were on their own those who after going through the hell of the communist dictatorship, and who still to this day are called former political victims, are going through another ordeal; the ordeal where not only they cannot feel the hand of the state in view of their financial needs, but first of all, they cannot see a meaningful sign of a moral rehabilitation in relation to a state that was supposed to eventually be their state, the state of everybody without distinction.
On their own were also the families in need of a financial allowance. The Albania we had when we assumed office owed them a mountain of debts. A mountain of debts to disabled people, a mount of debts to the families receiving financial allowance, money that resulted to be in the state budget and was allocated for them pursuant to the law, but which they had never received. And it was not little money, but it was a mountain of 720 million dollars in debt which the Albania we had owed to all those who had provided services based on the contracts to start building roads, to supply hospitals and schools, to maintain the state infrastructure, and for many similar services that were in the conditions of a financial paralysis because they had spent everything they had in their pockets being confident that the state would pay its dues. But not only the state didn’t pay what it owed to them, but it took them on the verge of bankruptcy.
This is the Albania we had!
The Albania we had provided a ridiculous financial allowance. I’m not saying that the financial allowance we have increased by three times in the Albania we have is enough, it must be much higher, but the Albania we have is the most meaningful example of a very simple truth: We are here for the Albania we want.
We’re not here to keep on with and to repeat an old story of more than 20 years that divided people between those of the mother and those of the stepmother. Those of the stepmother were the average people who didn’t have any important relative, any renowned last name. Average people with no money in their pockets to buy their rights; average people associated to no party in power that could ensure them a privileged access, not to amass wealth, not to make miracles, but just to be alive.
The Albania we had was a country where families that were entitled to financial allowance, had to be members of a party in order to receive it, they had to keep in their mobiles the picture of their vote. A vote that suited to a municipality head who divided people between those of the state, hence of the party that used the state for his/her own interests, and those of the stepmother.
Of course, the former political victims have plenty of reasons not to feel rehabilitated yet from a moral point of view, but as of today we are a few months away from fully settling every financial obligations to any living prisoner of the communist regime, all 8 instalments. Meanwhile, in the Albania we had we found plenty of people belonging to this category who hadn’t received yet even the first instalment, as it was very heart-breaking to learn that a lot of others had passed away without receiving the first instalment, whereas many others who hadn’t served one single day in prison had received more than one instalment because some descendant or I don’t know who had testified for them.
This was the Albania we had!
But the Albania we have is not yet the Albania we want, but it is the basis for the Albania we want because, in the Albania we have today, we can look everybody in the eye and tell them: This is what we can do for you, and what we could do for you should show you that we can and will do together what we want, together for you and for the Albania we want!
This school is another significant example of a very simple truth, that the state we had was on its own, it had nothing to do with the needs of these children with disabilities and special needs. On the contrary, one part of the building here was taken by the Education Authority of the village, another part was occupied by the people who lived in it, and the remaining part was where you people who are really worthy of admiration for your dedication and everything you do every day – taking into account that you don’t come to this school from the moon but from your families, you need to take care of your children and find a solution to your problems – you were left adrift. That situation was the shame of the state we had, the shame of the Albania we had.
It didn’t take a mountain of money, it just took the right sensitivity towards these children, it just took the right will to transform this space, from a place where you really felt like you were on a forgotten island, I don’t know in which far away continent, into a such wonderful island of peace, colours and spaces to meet all the needs of these children, ensuring also that the work of all of you convey much more positive energies and a greater value. As, ultimately, many people keep being concerned about the facades, and I really don’t understand what’s wrong with them. I don’t get it why a school, a ruined building seems normal to them, and a building, a transformed school like this one, is a fraud according to them.
This is the expression of a mentality that belongs to the past, of a mentality that belongs to the Albania we had. But I don’t blame them because, if you’re not worried about ugliness, if you’re not worried about dirtiness, if you’re not worried about chaos, but you’re worried about order and cleanness, you’re just a poor thing worthy of compassion, but you really don’t deserve the investment of any energy to convince you that nobody has been hurt by beauty. Don’t be scared of beauty! No misfortune has happened to anybody because of the colours, or because of order, no civilisation has disappeared due to cleanness.
Order, cleanliness, colour, harmony and work are the fundaments of the Albania we want!
This is not a reason for people to think how much happy they should be, and stand up and applaud us when they see us in charge of these works. No, because as we are here in this totally revived island that belongs now to the map of the Albania we want, there are still in Albania many islands that need to be revived. There are still many schools that need to be reconstructed from scratch, there are still many communities and many families whose children are obliged to attend school on two shifts, in addition to needing new spaces, new schools in order to end this two-shift story. Just like it is happening in Tirana where two-shift class hours are increasingly less, and where thanks to the 20 new schools we have started to build with the Municipality of Tirana, not only there won’t be two shifts anymore, but every school will be also a community centre guaranteeing normal class hours, where children won’t sit attached to each other, and where classrooms will have a heating system. I remember one of our ministers who said that we don’t need heat because classrooms are overpopulated, and therefore the temperature of the bodies ensured the heating of the classrooms due to the energy they released. So, he considered students like human heaters who could supply heating, but he hadn’t figured out yet a solution to cooling. These were the idiotic arguments of the people in the Albania we had.
My friends!
I would like to express my deep gratitude and respect, and I assure you that I am very happy that due to the reforms, due to the perseverance and dedication, due to the fact that beyond what politics is, and what goes on in a political and media village of 800 residents – as this is how much are those who are in charge of the buzz and tittle-tattle in this country in televisions, channels, portals, tents, in the cafes of the boulevard – the other Albania is totally different.
The other Albania doesn’t need these. The other Albania needs what we are here for, and which we will continue to do every day to make state, to have an Albania that works, where people work for each other, where the state works for the people, where people work for themselves and for the country in order to ensure prosperity.
After all, prosperity is not something that falls from the sky, prosperity doesn’t come from one party either; prosperity comes from the joint work of all parties. Let’s give Albanians the state we want, and let’s build with the Albanians the Albania we want!
Thank you!
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The special school “Luigj Gurakuqi” opened its doors to welcome children with disabilities in Tirana. Built in 1994 but degraded over the years due to lack of maintenance, after the intervention by the Municipality, the school provides now all the necessary conditions for a normal and modern teaching process to students with special needs. The new premises of this school were inaugurated today in a ceremony that was attended also by Prime Minister Edi Rama, the Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, the Minister of Education Lindita Nikolla and the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth Olta Xhacka who could see from near the work done in the project for the transformation of this building.
“The Municipality of Tirana has provided free transport for the students of this school. It is true that the government of Edi Rama has tripled the number of support teachers, but it has also provided an efficient training to the teachers who work with disables students, so that they can meet all their needs”, the Minister of Education Lindita Nikolla said.
Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj thanked all those who have contributed to improve the infrastructure of this school, as well as the teaching staff for their sacrifices. Mayor Veliaj noted that this category of children needs not only improved teaching materials, but also a special attention free of any judgment by society. He said that this year a special attention will be given precisely to the construction of school infrastructures as 17 schools are expected to be built in addition to the 3 already in construction, in order to end the two-shift class hours, but also to improve the quality of teaching in the institutions of knowledge.
The school “Luigj Gurakuqi” is the only special school attended by disabled children in Tirana. It has underwent a thorough reconstruction, starting with the installation of the electrical network, the sanitary facilities, the heating system with pellet etc. “Luigj Gurakuqi” will serve also as a community centre for all residents this area.
