As a beautiful gift for children of the capital in this year-end, the new National Cultural Centre for Children opened today its doors. A very modern space, vibrant and colourful, which has been transformed and conceived especially for young artists.
Following a 65-million ALL investment, the new house of art revived an old edifice, without any function and in totally inadequate conditions, which was completely renovated and transformed in a place full of fantasy where children can learn and have fun.
Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the New Centre and had a close look at the spaces where children attend weekly extracurricular courses of fine arts, music and theatre. The Prime Minister visited the classes of music, piano, singing, ballet, painting, sculpture and acting. He was accompanied by the Minister of Culture Mirela Kumbaro, the director of the centre, the teaching staff, parents, etc.
Minister of Culture Kumbaro said that what young artists will benefit is not just a building, but an authentic educational program in art and culture. Prime Minister Rama promised that such centres will be opened across the country to form a national network of artistic training and entertainment centres. “I am happy to see realized today this wish to create a real centre of artistic training and entertainment for children. Non everybody will decide to become artists in the future, but this special spiritual and aesthetic nourishment received on this path will definitely enrich your imagination, your thoughts, the way you listen and speak, whatever you decide to become in the future. Therefore, we want to give this opportunity we are giving to children in Tirana, also to children in other cities.
We are building a big and very modern centre for children in Korçë. We have another project in Berat in cooperation with mayors of other cities, we are trying to promote this process in order to have an entire national centre where those children who want to enter this magic labyrinth of sounds, colours, words, will be given an opportunity to do so. It will also help parents who, alongside with the efforts made at home, will find a place where their children can socialize and be in touch with teachers who can guide them carefully in order to receive as much as possible from this spiritual nourishment. Of course, Tirana is very big for a centre that is not as big as Tirana, but by looking at the attendance and how the centre will perform in the future, we can extend this experience with other spaces in different units in Tirana.
However this is a new and beautiful experience, and it is definitely up to parents and teachers to make it a useful experience for children.
But our work doesn’t end here. We will continue paying attention to the future improvement of this centre because this is a totally new experience. The centre has previously existed just as a name, with some walls and spaces that had no function and provided no conditions, while today it is a totally different reality.
I don’t want to be long. I want to thank the parents who are here, and congratulated them for choosing to feed their children this special nourishment, and while inviting other parents to do the same, I want to wish all of you a happy New Year. The next year will begin with this centre, and we hope very much that time will not only prove us right, but it will also teach us how to improve this environment even more and improve quality on this new path of cooperation with the parents for the benefit of our children. There are children of different ages here, therefore the work of the centre is more varied but also more complex. So, I want to underline that the presence of the parents and their encouragement is of fundamental importance, and the more parents are involved and address to us not only their concerns but also their suggestions, the better this shared work is going to be.
Respect to all of you!
Happy New Year children!
And of course, much success to the directors and animators of the centre!
