About the project
In recent years is noticed a continuing decrease of the number of young voters. This phenomenon, according to the data of Institute of Statistics, is growing from many reasons. The reasons are connected with raising number of Albanian youngsters that decide to leave the country and immigrate, and lack of trust at political parties, political representatives and politicians. Doing a simple analysis we verify that in national level around 60% of young citizens have the right of vote. The winning coalition usually is able to take 70% of the votes, which legitimate them to form the new government with only 42% of those that voted, or from a number of citizens that is lower than half of all citizens with the right of vote.
What is obvious is that the government and its structures are not base on the plurality of the country. Based on this was noticed as necessary by us to create a program of activities on order to raise awareness and to encourage those with decision making power and good will through the vote.
Through this project we brought into attention of all the importance that ballot box has, the importance of expressing their choice through the vote and to consider the voting process as an civil obligation for all. The project’s innovation was based on the types of activities implemented to spread our message. What we wanted to achieve is expressed in these topics:
- Raising awareness on young citizens to participate on election and embody their choice with the vote;
- Reducing the number of voters that give their vote on exchange for money.
- Promoting the mind-set of taking under consideration and understanding the programs of political parties.
- Develop new approaches to voting, such as choosing to believe in a political or social program rather than militancy.
The implemented activities were of four different types.
- Awareness videos campaign,
- Shpërndarja e kartolinave me mesazhe ndërgjegjësuese
- The campaign on media and social media,
- Creation of contemporary artistic installations
The first activity was with different video messages from youngsters. In total were made 3 videos were each of the videos gives a specific message on the importance of vote and its power.
About the second activity, a group of young people were on site in the cities of Tirana, Durres, Korca, Vlora, Gjirokastra and Fier, and they gave some postcards with awareness messages on voting and the reason to vote.
The other activity was related to the dissemination of information and the other three activities on social media and TV channels.
The fourth and last activity was creating artistic installations. A group of artists created 5 installations that were put on 5 cities which were Durres, Korca, Vlora, Gjirokastra and Fier.
The first installation that was placed in the city of Durres and was formed as a big hand were a little hand lies on it, to symbolise that we are the ones that decide and we have the power of vote. This installation was on green for symbolising hope.
The second installation was like a giant ballot box and was showed as the secret place that is for voting. In the difference form the secret room were the vote is signed, people would find themselves in front of a giant ballot paper. The ballot paper was divided in 2 parts. On one side was written: I wont stay silent- I vote- I give my free vote. On the other side was written: I am silent- I don’t vote- I give my corrupted vote. In front of the ballot paper were installed 3 rods which had 3 “tick” signs each. The citizens had to chose by ticking.
The third installation was placed in the city of Gjirokastra and this one was formed as closed by all sides ballot box and is full of colours to get attention. On its body were carved different quotes for corruption, voting and the responsibilities of the citizens.
The forth installation was formed as 2 slices of lemon and was placed in the city of Vlora, and aimed to tell citizens that we are the ones that decide and that we should not permit any one to squeeze us.
The last installation was placed in the city of Fier. This installation is formed as a very special ballot box. This box was not made by wood as the real ballot box but was created with mirrors. The purpose of this installation was to see ourselves on the mirror and vote for the one that will represent us.
The results we achieved at the end of the project came from the successful implementation of the activities.
By the end we achieved to have a more informed public on the importance of vote. We achieved to have more informed youngsters on the different political coalition programs. They started wondering if they were represented by people with the same values as them or not. By the end of project we were able to have informed youngsters and not party militants.
Implemented by:
Implemented by LIBURNETIK Organization in collaboration with European Movement Albania, Citizens Channel and National Youth Congress.
Supported by
Materials from the campaign:
