The New Year 2022 photo contest, an initiative launched by Prime Minister Edi Rama by the end of last year, was finalized today with the presentation of the prize winners at a ceremony at the hall of the Centre for Openness and Dialogue (COD) at the Prime Minister’s office.

Under this initiative, PM Rama invited every citizen to forward pictures, videos and their wishes via the online co-governance platform.

More than 700 citizens responded to the invitation extending their image, text and video messages via the platform. A total of 455 citizens participated in the photo category with their images being inspired by nature landscapes, portraits and symbols. The winning photos were displayed on the walls of the protocol hall at the Prime Minister’s office to allow the public to visit them in the coming days.

Some 159 citizens took part with their entries in the video-request category, with participants recording videos while forwarding a specific request for the school and the community where they live. Meanwhile, 97 people participated in the wishes category, extending short congratulations and New Year messages.

In addition to the most impressive photos, videos and text messages forwarded by the participants, the message conveyed by the contest was the desire and best wish that the New Year bring everyone happiness, peace, and prosperity.

In the ceremony to award the symbolic prizes, PM Rama thanked the citizens who joined the contest, expressing hope that the event becomes a tradition with a much higher number of participants.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at the awards presentation ceremony:

I am very happy to be here with a genuine artist, who unlike other artists you likely know, has always kept his passion alive and thanks to him and other friends in the jury, we can symbolically reward the winners of this contest today.

I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to acknowledge that I am really happy that so many people responded positively to the invitation I launched quite spontaneously.

Second, I would like to thank each and everyone attending this ceremony here and all of those actually not here, but who participated in this contest, and I very much hope that this event becomes a tradition with an ever growing number of people participating in it.

Third, we intended to symbolically present the winners with a special symbol, and not the contest winners only, but other participants too. A part of them are attending this event here, while many others have participated in this contest without being in Albania at all. Others couldn’t attend this event here. We will send each and every one of them a token of gratitude and thanks, while I would just like to add something before we present the prizes. There is also a public choice award, if I am not mistaken, which is displayed here along with three other pictures and I am very happy to be given the opportunity to express this consideration through the qualified opinion by a jury of artists and renowned people.

[Awards presentation]

I would also like to thank other jury members and the agency that worked on this process, and everyone else involved in this process.

I would also like to thank the Minister of Education, the State Minister for Youth and Children, as well as the Director-General of the pre-University Education, who contributed to the process, taking notice of the fact that pupils and students from all over the country have forwarded so many video requests under the contest’s video request section. And I would like to clarify something about what was already said, because one may have to provide explanations among all of those participants, whose number was considerably high, and tell them the difference between a request forwarded by a school from the one sent by another school, since almost all participants from many schools have actually demanded that gyms, libraries, IT labs be built at their schools. The difference stands in the very fact that although the requests in their very essence and content do not differ significantly from each other, yet there have certainly been advantages and disadvantages in terms of the way and the passion through which these requests have been forwarded and this has been the evaluation criterion.

Meanwhile, previous speakers highlighted the fact that not only the winning schools, but other schools too that have forwarded a request will receive help and it is worth highlighting that this is not about a direct request and direct access to the state coffers. This is all about cooperation with all the students who have made these request to work together and support them by providing financial assistance for their needs, which means that we will make use of this process to increase not only sensitiveness, but also the students’ know-how about much higher and more opportunities than the apparent ones every individual has when coming together with many others behind a common goal by following a series of steps.

So, if individually there are no schoolchildren who would not like a gym, a library or an IT lab be available at their schools, or whatever else their schools lack, but the change can be delivered by the next step, the courage and the willingness to form a group sharing not only the common opinion, but also the conviction that we need to fight to provide these things and one has then certainly to count the number of various doors he or she knocks on  dyer and ask for a library, a lab or a gym, because everyone wants it, but a written project is also needed with arguments why the library is needed, and why it is precisely us the ones to be trusted  and not others who need a library too, by providing explanations and arguments what do you plan to do with the library and how would you make it effective and increase the students’ interest in reading and books, the projected number of readers and many other arguments so that you can convince the government, as well as various foundations to help you build a library.

So, this is an exercise we would be pleased to embark on together with students and pupils, not only in the three winning communities for which things will be somehow easier as they are winners. This way, anyone thinking of sending a video request next year should think how to make the video more convincing and attractive, including others by starting to create a knowhow network in terms of how the projects are prepared, the way how one can gain access to the funds available to help delivering on various goals, as it is a knowhow which would be worth and helpful for everyone in the future once they graduate in this world of ample and endless opportunities, but where you should know and be enough skilled to access those communication and financing channels instead of staying passive and idly waiting for the state to act and do everything for you.

As for the photo category, I would like to add any more comment about it as Besi said almost everything and spoke much better than I would do, but I would just like to say that this too is designed to build a tradition and we want to expand the range of participants. Meanwhile, we, as Bora said earlier, children are the government’s top priority in terms of the concrete projects and policies for children, not only in that general theoretical sense, which is definitely for everyone, that  children are the priority of priorities in every family and this way children are the priority of all priorities for Albania, but in this case too,  the idea is to move further and to this end we, like never before, have set aside significant funding to address the children’s need for arts, crafts, technology and sports in the afterschool and leisure time.

Last, but not least was another category, which might haven’t had the same understanding, or the degree of understanding the contest has been lower and therefore the participation rate has been lower too. However, a number of people have taken part in this category too, namely the category of wishes to pick up the most beautiful one, with a number of children having received the invitation via the social media networks. The first prize for the best written and expressed wish category is awarded to Ana Karaj, a pupil at Bakushe Bisha nine-year school. “I am a child with health problems and as such I cannot follow in the footsteps of my peers during the education and learning process. Not only me, but other pupils at this school need a person to help us overcome the hurdles we encounter as we strive to follow in the footsteps of peers. The Ministry of Education has addressed our plight by appointing a teacher assistant and I Prime Minister thought of asking you about the year-end gift, but fate had it that Mrs. D became my Santa Claus this year precisely as a teacher, and I would like to wholeheartedly thank her for becoming the linking bridge between my health issue and the person who made it possible for me to hear the voice of my parents, my teacher, my friends and everything around me. I would like to thank Mrs. D, my teacher assistant and wish them and everyone else a Happy New Year 2022!”

The second prize goes to a girl. “It is my wish for Santa Claus to bring peace and tranquility as a year-end gift, add some more seeds of what that very rare thing called happiness, and also add two or three drops of joy to wipe away tears. And if there is still more room, add a lot, extremely a lot of strength to believe again.” 

Thank you very much and much respect for all of those who have taken the trouble to come and attend this event.