RIGHT TO THE CITY | ALBANIA

OPEN FORUMS APRIL - MAY 2017 RECTORATE OF UNIVERSITY ‘LUIGJ GURAKUQI’ SHKODRA

KOTORTIRANABEL GRADEMITROVICA PRISHTINAPRIZREN SHKODRASKOPJE A cycle of 8 debates about the CITY and the COMMUNITIES in Balkan Cities are getting hold by GUEST SPEAKERS, as urban planner, architect, writer, politicians, sociologist, artist and activist from their respective cities: KOTOR TIRANA MITROVICA BELGRADE PRISHTINA PRIZREN SHKODRA SHKUP The forum aims to present the dynamics of cities through integrated planning policies and instruments that manage urban growth and economic development.

Urbanization is the phenomenon of this century and for the first time in history, more than half the world’s population lives in urban areas. Between 2000 and 2030 in developing countries, the urban population is expected to double, and all built-up areas are designed to be tripled if the current trends continue on this way. This rapid transformation of spatial demographic could prove to be difficult for cities in developing countries, especially small and medium towns, where the capacity to cope with major urban challenges is usually insufficient. These challenges include climate change, natural resource scarcity, informal buildings or slums growth, disparities in economic development and efficiency of cities, security, etc.

Urban growth for Cities provides a synthesized approach and an analysis of policy-making. It will be explored in several ways, like: economic, philosophic and social forces.

Different countries have different approaches to the alignment of policies, such as: policy development and urban regeneration; local economic development through interventions in transport, public squares, innovation and entrepreneurship, tourism, food and rural development, environment and natural resource degradation, etc.

See: www.youtube.com/go2albania/Right To The City Albania

KOTOR

ALEKSANDRA KAPETANOVIC

conservation architect Aleksandra Kapetanović is a conservation architect, a coordinator of Cultural Heritage Sector and one of the founders of NGO EXPEDITIO Center for Sustainable Spatial Development, Kotor, Montenegro. Through working in NGO sector since 1997, she has gained experience in implementing projects in the fields of cultural heritage, sustainable architecture and spatial planning, which aim, through multidisciplinary and participatory approach, to contribute to the overall development of civil society.

She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, Belgrade University, Serbia and finished postgraduate courses in the field of cultural heritage in Slovak Republic and Italy.

Community challenges and activities in a World Heritage Site – case of Kotor Architects are not taught in school to work closely with the community, and somehow we felt that this is the only way. Sso from the early beginning we started to work closely with the local community in the area that we were working.

To do different projects and to contribute in the quality of life of the community, reminded us that we are part of that community.

Kotor is a historical town, its old territory is inscribed in the UNESCO heritage list, and is one of the three sites in Montenegro. Kotor is in the list from 1979.

Kotor has only 20 000 inhabitants, but in the last years there is a big pressure in all the Montenegrin cost, including Kotor. People are selling their flats, because the prices are going very high and they are moving outside. Now, instead of inhabitants, are more and more apartments and hotels in the town. Streets and square are covered with coffee shops. We are losing our public spaces, we have now squares that are transformed into streets.

In the last years, Kotor became attraction of mass tourism and is in the route of the cruise ships going around Mediterranean, creating a chaos in our town.

When the big number of tourist comes immediately in the town it is really problematic for the functioning of the town.

In the last decade there was a big construction activity in the entire Montenegrin coast. Due to this excessive and uncontrolled urbanization, we have from 2003 recommendations from UNESCO, expressing concern about uncontrolled urbanization that can influence negatively the universal value of the site.

One of the biggest problems now is that the planning system is very weak. We have bad plans supporting this type of development. These building constructions are not for the local inhabitants, but apartments for tourism. As an example, the new constructions in Kostanjica, opposite Perast and St. George and Our Lady of the Rocks islands.

Question: What was the UNESCO reaction for the constructions in Kostanjica?

It is still an upon issue, last June in Istanbul, it was World Heritage Committee meeting, and there were decision given from UNESCO to take from Montenegro to prepare heritage impact assessments. Those assessments that are analyzing that negative impact of the development process in the heritage values effects in all area, including specifically small parts of Kostanjica and some others. It is clear from the report of UNESCO Mission in 2013 that what happened there it is not good, but what is a bigger problem, there are new plans for giving more constructions in that area, so that’s why they asked us before constructing anything that we need to make those heritage impact assessments.

Question: What were the instruments you used since the beginning to push the community to get more engaged?

With all the activities that we are implementing we try to have them very participatory, we are doing studies on heritage, and we ask people living there to tell us what they think is very rare, valuable and organizing all these different activities in these areas that are used by local community, like these concerts on the hill, we were impressed when so many people came. Inviting these people and talking about these issues to raise awareness about these issues. Step by step people will start to participate.

08/04/2017

TIRANA FATOS LUBONJA

writer & journalist Writer & journalist, Fatos Lubonja is the founder of “Përpjekja” magazine. Author of many books.

Winner of: Prince Claus Fund Award, Sergio Vieira de Mello Award, Premio Colomba d’Oro per la Pace, Premio Archivio Desarmo, Human Rights Monitor Award, Premio Alberto Moravia, Herde Price for literature, SEEMO Award etc

Tirana, my ruined city I am not an architect or urbanist, but a citizen of Tirana. As a writer, I am sensitive to the city, and if I would illustrate the spirit of this forum, I could give the example of a famous Russian painter, Marc Chagall, who left his country after the so-called Revolution of October. When was given the chance to return to the Soviet Union at that time, in his town Viteks, he did not go anymore, pretending that he wanted to keep his memories as they were. I myself live in a city I have remembered as it was, but at the same time I have experienced constant trauma of its change. There are many places in Tirana where memory has been killed, where I refuse to go, where I refuse to enter. If I would refer to a writer, again to say that not just an architect, not just an urbanist but everyone can talk about the city is Pier Paolo Pasolini who in the late 1950s set the alarm for the destruction of Italy.

One of my most beautiful memories from Tirana is the Old Bazaar, which was located in the area where nowadays the famous Palace of Culture is set up. I find important to note this point, because the spirit that this second half of XX century and which continues still today is substitution of Old Tirana with new buildings and other functionality.

Question: Is the urban chaos of the post ‘90s related to the individual or the system?

An absolute control from the state such as the regime era could be considered as a paradise for architecture, but in that time the state did not have a vision; they should not have destroyed much as they did, destroying the churches and the mosques. That regime damaged a lot, but when we see the other side of the coin, capitalism has created great problems all over the world. Albania is an extreme case. The profit and materialistic system, and the measurement of the growth with GDP, is also criticized by Sarkozy, who represents the right wing. If the GDP curve climbs high, the curve of the quality of life decreases with GDP growth. In Albania, this system is created without democracy, it is an oligarchy.

This minority power, according to the Italian philosopher Roberto Bovio, is a kind of economic fascism.

Question: What is the responsibility of professionals who are or should be in the local government, and especially in the Ministry of Culture or the Institute of Monuments?

The mechanism of eliminating the experts was the corruptive force of money.

Thus, most of the experts were corrupted because they were poor. The state did not help in avoiding this phenomenon so the institutions were destroyed.

One of the main reasons behind the fact that every voice became silent was the fact that all the constructor companies did not accidentally become media owners. All the damages that Albania had and should be said in the media were blown, because these constructors did not allow it. Citizens were not informed, but rather manipulated. Experts have been part of this crime. The problem is that we have submissive people, we do not have personalities. Responsibility more than ignorance, is corruption and lack of courage, civility, civic responsibility towards others.

15/04/2017

MITROVICA NEXHMEDIN SPAHIU

mathematician and politicologist Mathematician and politicologist, Nexhmedin Spahiu was a professor of University of Tirana (Albania), University of Tetova (FYROM), University of Pristina (Kosovo), and the University of Hamburg (Germany).

Author of 8 books and a numerous political analyses published in international media.

Mitrovica - the fall of a city 18 years ago, the UNMIK chief of that time, later the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France - Mr. Bernard Kouchner, invited me to speak to the Security Council (which?) about the history of the city of Mitrovica. We were on Ibri River Bridge, when a call came from New York to the chief of Security Council and asked for his location. So, the conversation was interrupted and he replied: I am on the most famous bridge in the world.

The feeling that you are on the world’s most famous bridge for a moment seems a good feeling, but in fact for the residents it is not always fun; this most famous bridge can be a reason for sacrifice, disasters or tragedy. not clear. The following 18 years proved exactly this.

The importance of a city is emphasized from rivers passing nearby, their size, and distances to the lake or the sea. Mitrovica has 4 rivers and is located near the lake from which more than half of Kosovo is supplied with water. The city’s age and cultural heritage is another factor. In Kosovo, only two cities have castles; Mitrovica and Prizren, as well as two towns, Vushtrri and Novobërdë. Mitrovica is the most important city for the geopolitical and geostrategic aspects, and therefore it is not a coincidence that when Serbian forces withdrew from Kosovo, they remained just there, in this city. Only in Mitrovica was a guerrilla war within the city, except Rahovec. Massacres were made all over the city and about 70% of homes were burned. After the war, French forces did not allow Albanians to return to their homes in the north, while Serbs who fled from other parts of Kosovo occupied the homes of Albanians.

Later it was done their gradual return, but on 2nd of February 2000 followed a massacre between Albanians and Serbs and the city was emptied and divided into two ethnic lines: Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south.

The ruin of the city came gradually. Going back in its past, Mitrovica began to grow after World War II, but its growth and industrialization begins its ugliness, especially after the last war, when the majority population takes over power and thinks that it can develop the city in the best possible way: the opposite happened.

Question: Is French KFOR the real genesis of the division of the city?

It is the great policy, the French KFOR, but it is no longer. If the state of Kosovo will ever function, it will start from Mitrovica. Its rise depends precisely on Mitrovica, thanks to its resources.

Question: You talk with no patriotic-nationalist emotions when you mention Serbs and Albanians, but how do you feel experiencing the ruin of your city?

Before liberation we thought that every evil came from the invaders. Now, 18 years after being liberated with the help of the world, not only by bombing Belgrade, but also by giving us money, we see that not only the Serbs were guilty for the situation, but ourselves as well.

21/04/2017

BELGRADE IVAN KUCINA

architect Ivan Kucina (1961) is a professor at Dessau International School of Architecture, Anhalt University. He worked at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade. He was a guest professor at the Parsons The New School for Design, New York, Polis University, Tirana, KTH Stockholm, Faculty of Architecture University of Podgorica, GUTech, Muscat, Oman.

His academic research focuses on sustainable architecture and urban development with concepts based on informal building strategies and participatory practices. Kucina is a practicing architect and run an interdisciplinary architectural and design practice with projects that range from urban design and buildings to exhibition design and furniture.

Commoning the Uncommoness - Developing Urban Commons in the Post Socialist City Post socialist city meaning is elaborated a lot in different theories also among urbanists, but more from sociologists and experts from human sciences. It is a recent term that urbanist started to use, because they are all the time engaged in the urban transformation, somehow they neglect the political transformation, because they treat themselves like the technocratic elite, which is just following the orders of politicians. Socialist ideology was run by the Communist Party, but communism never came, that’s why I cannot call this post-communist city, because communism was the promised future not the reality we were living, which was socialism. And socialism was just a transition period between capitalism and communism in which all the contradictions of this tool were mixed and confronted until they should purified.

There is a kind of relation between the city administration, sometimes is the government and the developers in order to provide profits, and the City Planning from the social methodology went into business methodology. When we face post socialist cities today, we see something like the new Belgrade, that was planned as a modernist city during the socialist time, but after the transformation period which lasts already for 25 years, the new individual buildings that are completely unrelated to each other. There is not anymore integrity within the city. There is nothing human in that. In theory in a document of the United Nation describes the urban development in the next 20 years, but this kind of development which we face in the post socialist city is unsustainable, because it excludes society and tends to disintegrate the city.

Sava Mala, a neighborhood on Sava River in Belgrade is the illustration of this uneven development of the city. It was neglected since the WWII, no one ever wanted to live there. The cultural center grad were the first ones who came in 2009. They’re still running a bar, their main recourse of finance, but also exhibition and conference space. This started to attract a lot of young people in Sava Mala. We developed a long term strategy based on bottom-up initiatives, the key points of this strategy are all based on the sharing of knowledge, actions and visions. However, the city authorities didn’t want to collaborate with us, they want to collaborate with Emirate States, to build a Belgrade waterfront, to bring there 20 000 people.

Question: Do you feel nostalgic about socialism period?

Not really, I am not nostalgic, I am all the time proactive and prospective, so I am not looking back too much.

Question: What is common by your point of view?

Common is not private or public, is the third stadium, it could be developed on private or public property and is based on the sharing of responsibilities.

Question: What were your mechanisms to pressure the local government to get them involved during your work?

All these projects were like open for collaboration with municipality. I went on the meetings, I gave them all the papers, but they didn’t take part into this. There is a big gap between the experts and citizens, I believe citizens know a lot, there are things they don’t know. I also believe that experts know something and there are things they don’t know. So, they have to learn from each-other.

28/04/2017

PRISHTINA ELIZA HOXHA

urban planner & artist Architect, urban planner and artist graduated in Prishtina, Belgium and Austria. Engaged to the universities of Prishtina and Tetovo. Author of urban diary "City and Love". Winner of many prices and participant in many personal and collective exhibition of visual arts in different countries of the world. Successful performance on national music festivals. Member of the European Cultural Parliament.

Women and the City When we analyze the performance of cities not only in our local perspective but also in global context, stories are usually written by men, cities are built by men, and decisions are taken by men. The reasons for this are numerous, but mainly because the woman has belonged mostly to the home space. However, this has started to change. Today, thinkers go beyond what Henry Lefevre wrote, pointing out that apart from the right to the city, during its development and change, we develop and change ourselves. That is why in 1994 was established the European Charter on Women’s Rights in the City. However, the presence of women in institutions of decision-making in Kosovo, addressing the problems of the city, is very poor. Not always their presence in decision-making is in such level because of non-respecting of the gender quota sanctioned in the laws of the country, but also because of the lack of human resources, meaning women prepared for this field.

On the other hand, the inclusion of women living in a very religious environment is also difficult, especially if this religion is Islam. If we need to organize separate meetings with the community, we have to come to know it and get the best out of it. Thus, in such a separate meeting with the community in a village of Kosovo, the men rightly required the way to school, while at the meeting with women sought to have a separate school and that’s because beyond the women, they try to address the needs of the people that care about. When a woman is part of the process, she brings the other half of the confession that is often lacking. In Kosovo, even that the law requires women to be part of decision-making processes, generally the plans are compiled from offices and the community is called when the planning process is over and the feedback of people is less relevant in this stage. Let’s not forget that a space planning is considered successful when women’s participation is 50%.

Question: Kosovo’s experience, but also the Albanian one, has shown that not always the implementation of the law on women representation in institutions has brought the right people. How can this be solved?

Personally I am a proponent of professional merit, but it happens that despite this, an individual does not perform well. The Electoral law defines Kosovo as a single electoral zone and this damages the cause because female professional potentials are not proposed to citizens and consequently in municipal assemblies, the real voice of citizens is missing.

Maybe this law needs to be changed.

06/05/2017

PRIZREN HAJRULLA ÇEKU

civil society activist Hajrulla Çeku works at EC Ma Ndryshe, a community based civil society organization in Kosovo that promotes sustainable and inclusive city planning and development and local democracy. He holds a master degree on local governance and development. Hajrulla has over 15 years of experience in civil society and has published extensively on governance, activism and cultural heritage. EC's advocacy and watchdog work has improved transparency and accountability practices in a number of Kosovo municipalities. Through its grassroots activism, the organization has successfully reclaimed public and cultural spaces in Prizren, turning them into community facilities that are utilized for public benefit purposes.

Their Prizren and Our Prizren Until 2006 there was no reaction to the degradation of the city, not only in Prizren but also in other centers of Kosovo. We all knew that the price of any opposition to construction companies closely related with political parties, with local and central government would have great consequence.

Immediately after the war, in 2000, it was a case that determined the urban dynamism and activism in Kosovo. The one we refer to as the first urban post-war activist in Kosovo, is the former director of urbanism in Municipality of Pristina, a public opponent of the development of these companies, but also of their policy to destroy Pristina. But in 2000 he was killed. We still do not know who did the act, but we know something well: the goal was not the director of urbanism as an individual, but the message for the whole society, an illustration of what we would expect if we oppose these groups.

Unfortunately, they succeeded.

For several years, the construction sector was the sector that circulated mostly incomes in cash in the Kosovo economy, we are not talking here about millions, but for billions referring to more constructions that very often are done in protected areas of cultural and natural heritage, destroying something that is protected by law. This continued for several years and in reality there was no opposition in Kosovo. In 2006, when we started the organization and began photographing illegal constructions or the degradation of monuments with the aim to publish them, this action was considered revolutionary, although it was not. It was a very simple thing; we took photos, measured the monuments where there were specific cases and just published them.

This was called something between the courageous and the naive and so has really started our journey since 2006.

Question: How does the management of cultural monuments work in Prizren and why does not it intervene to save them somewhat?

There are two levels of decision-making in relation to the permits issued for cultural heritage areas: the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality, which is the last office that provides the applicant with a permit. There are over 20 laws and institutional mechanisms that Kosovo has for heritage protection, but construction is the sector that has the least accountability in Kosovo.

In the end, they are the owners of traditional houses that in one form or another are forced to cooperate with this kind of organized crime; first, they are pretty much attracted by the very good offers of businesses and secondly, many traditional houses have many co-owners because they are homes built 200 years ago, families have grown up, and now that house belongs to 5 to 6 families in the same time and for them the best solution is to give their house in the hand of a constructor company.

12/05/2017

SHKUP ARTAN SADIKU

theorist and activist Artan Sadiku is a theorist and activist from Shkup (Skopje) and holds a PhD in political philosophy. His primary interests are theories of the subject, feminism and radical practices in politics and arts. He works at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities in Skopje, where he lectures at the Social Philosophy Department and is actively involved with the Leftist movement Solidarnost and the Cultural Club Syndicate. His latest publications include “Provocation to a final resistance of truth: ethics of a heretical discourse” and “Contracting a radical democracy in the Balkans: The ‘return of the people’ as a possibility for feminist inauguration of politics.

Struggles of Skopje: Solidarity and modernism against the ethno-baroque Skopje dates from the Illyrian period, but the greatest growth was after the devastating earthquake of the year 1963. It was then called the city of solidarity, as 135 states were engaged in its reconstruction. The new urban plan saw this city as a common space, a collective concept without considering the individual. After totalitarianism, business and political interests began to transform Kenzo Tange’s project by building facilities in any free public space.

Skopje experienced the social innovation that was launched by the Old Bazaar, a dead part of the city, where after opening a cafeteria by informal groups in 2008, there are 17 festivals today in this area. Years later the government intervened by bringing a curriculum to revitalize the Old Bazaar. This also changed the ethnic dynamics within the city.

The project “Skopje 2014” was launched by the local government in 2010. Still without realizing the promised economic renewal of the country, it was seen as a good reason to revitalize the issue of national identity. The government tried to eradicate the identity from Slavic and place it in antiquity and Alexander the Great. The modernist view of Skopje shifted into a neo-baroque and neo-classical style. The city is full with too many statues, only in the main square there are 146 statues! The model of the traditional Ohrid houses, which was used to erect cubic buildings under the Kenzo Tange plan in 1963, now was made of gypsum facades. This was tragic, because it cost over 1.1 billion Euros, in a time when Macedonian annual budget is about 3 billion Euros! Architecture students protested the first, but the government together with the church organized counter protests with people who raped students. While in the 2016 protest, buildings were shot in paint.

The Albanian response to this project was Skanderbeg Square, a concrete structure 10-15 m high. Using millions of tons of concrete in the old part of the city, a fact that does not fit with the local/traditional architecture, this destroys the appearance of the city, and is unusable, because you have to climb a ladder in order to reach the square!

And now that the government has changed, the main discussion is how much the demolishing of these facilities should cost.

Question: What if the new government says the cost of dismantling is unbearable?

Perhaps the people themselves will begin to spoil it and it does not cost much, because taking the sculpture of Alexander the Great needs only one rope. But this is not a technical approach, because these facilities are part of a larger social master plan, which includes changes in curricula, and so on. “Skopje 2014” has created a new ideological discourse and new generations are identified with this creed and realistic project at the same time.

26/05/2017

SHKODRA ZEF ÇUNI

architect, vice minister Zef Çuni is architect & deputy minister of culture. Former director of Culture Monuments Sector in Shkoder County, the restorer of the Rozafa castle, the house of Oso Kuka etc.

Decorated with the National Order “Naim Frashëri”.

Shkodra, the city over and under the water ‘Shkodra, the city over and under the water’ was the topic of the seventh forum, which did not take place, due to objective reason.

This is a short summary of the delivered presentation.

In earlier times, the densest population has been settled far away from the sea, in the remote mountainous areas in order to get protected from attacks and invasions. Meanwhile, Shkodra has resisted for centuries in the field, in between Alps (+2500m), the mountain ranges (600-800m) and penetrating into the field towards three rivers, Adriatic Sea and Shkodra Lake (the biggest one in Balkans).

It has brought flows in movement of people (migrations), stories, capitals in economy and exchanges. Water, as a multidimensional element, it is appeared environmentally (a natural resource for living), socially (a sensitive basis for developing human activities), economically (influencing tourism, agriculture, fisheries), culturally (related to folklore, mythology, art and religion) and aesthetically (represented as beauty element of nature).

The city has found gets connected with the sea across Buna River, it has always been considered a coastal city. An early settlement located between sweet and salty waters. Throughout the water flows, the city has developed sailing, since the Labeats’ ships and till XXth century with the industrialization and the trade in the Adriatic Sea. After 1945s, Albania was hermetically isolated, and the cross-border water areas got danger for the totalitarian system. Therefore, the sailing disappeared, and even nowadays after 25 years of free movement, this sector is not yet recovered.

Water, this element as much as it offers life, threatens their own life with floods. ‘If Shkodra doesn’t exist at all, it would be inundated by water,’ - say the elders. In times, the city center of Shkodra is often found under the water (even half a meter) – it could be seen by Marubbi photos as well.

20/05/2017

Sustainable Urban Planning Organization Non-Governmental Organization, established in 2012.

Vision: Better quality of Life for our communities.

Mission: GO2 contributes in built and natural environment through models of land uses. Urban Planning.

Sustainable transport. Sustainable Tourism.

Bulevardi “Skënderbeu” Nd34, H2, A1 4001 Shkoder Albania

GO2, as Entrepreneur Representative of Albania by 700 participants through all over the world at 7th ANNUAL GLOBAL ENTREPRENEUR SUMMIT 2016, in Silicon Valley California, USA. President Obama highlights his commitment to building bridges that help us tackle global challenges together.

[June 22-24, 2016]

Western Balkans Philanthropy for Green Ideas Winners 2014

US Embassy Tirana ACTNOW! AWARD August 2013

www.go2albania.org www.shkoderbybike.al info@go2albania.org +355(0)695590290

Representative of Albania at YTILI through 48 participants from across Europe. The 2016 Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI) is an international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Meridian International Center.

[June 2016]

RISI TURISTIKE AWARD 2015

CYCLING VISIONARIES AWARD 2013

PROJECTS • ‘Game for City’ revitalisation of public Space in Vau Dejës Municipality.

Supported by US Embassy, Tirana • Architecture Consultancy on ‘Design Code - Theth’, like a protected area – National Park. Financed by GIZ • Tourism Consultancy, ‘EcoTourism destination – Feasibility Study’ Albanian – American Development Fund and High Institution on Territorial Systems and Innovation, Torino, Italy • ‘Right to the City’ open forums in 8 Balkans Cities (Shkodra, Belgrade, Kotor, Shkup, Mitrovica, Prishtina, Tirana and Prizren) • TEUTA – Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan for Shkoder (SUMP) supported by EU funds and coordinated by Rec Albania, and to adapt the EU Legislation on air quality directive at Albanian Legislation. Leader applicant • “VIJA” Environmental Newspaper for Protected Area in Albania • ‘SHKODRA, my family, my bike, my story’ Photo album with bicycles before ‘90s • ‘Pollution of Drini River basin from Urban Waste’ cross border CRESSIDA project in between Kukes/Diber (AL) and Gjakova/Istog (KS) funded by Environmental Protection Agency – US EPA coordinated from REC-Albania • Tourism Consultancy on Riviera Plan ‘Integrated Sustainable Development of the Southern Coastal Region’ implemented from GIZ Albania and Ministry of Urban Development • ‘Uje & Gure’ tourist product on cycling in Shkoder region. Winner of ‘RISI Turistike 2015’ Award, funded by Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation • ‘4 Open Forums on Totalitarianism Period’ Shkoder initiated and supported

by GO2 • ‘Castle to Castle’, tourist product on cycling in Shkoder region. Winner in “Green Ideas” National and Balkans Competition, funded by Rock Feller Brothers Foundation in collaboration with Partners Albania • ‘EuroVelo8’ tourist product on cycling, funded by European Commission and implemented by 13 partners from Mediterranean countries EVENTS • ‘Traditional Architecture - KULLA’ exhibition on ‘Design Code - Theth’.

Financed by GIZ • Animated movie ‘The River’ as workshop of visible image in movement • ‘Shkodra, my family, my bike, my story’ photo exhibiton with bicycles before ‘90s • European Mobility Week 7-day Campaign in Shkoder, 16-22 Sept 2016 • First/Second Informative Conference ‘Sustainable Tourism in Shkoder County’ 2016/2017 • Earth Day 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 • Founder of Critical Mass Shkoder