The Life of a Kosovar
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- Neshad Ademaj, the purchaser for a grocery distribution center, uses his Ipko Card to receive money from family members working in Germany, without the high cost of other money transfer companies.
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- Erina, Ademaj’s daughter, plays in the front yard of her family’s home outside of Prizren, Kosovo. Ademaj also uses his Ipko Card to conveniently pay bills and do errands that would otherwise require him to travel into town and take up a lot of valuable time, that he can now spend with his family instead.
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- Ademaj’s grandmother is the eldest member of the family. Ademaj also lives with his mother, father, wife, and three children. The money he receives from his brothers in Germany help support the four generations living under one roof.
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- Erinol and Albin, Ademaj’s other two children, play basketball on their driveway with their dad, while their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother pick flowers from their garden.
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- Ademaj left Germany, where he was working with his two brothers, to come home and help support his family. He promised his, then, girlfriend that he would return to Kosovo to marry her and raise a family.
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- Ademaj’s mother, right, and her mother, pictured with her, are incredibly proud of their beautiful home outside of Prizren, particularly their flowerbeds and garden.
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- Ademaj picks up Erina after she fell down while trying to play basketball with her big brothers at their home.
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- Ademaj, his wife, children and grandmother pose for a family portrait.
Photos and Captions by Lara Haase
From January to May, The University of Texas team of Students of the World drew on all of our resources to research the uncharted region of Kosovo thoroughly, even going so far as to interview Kosovars that attend UT. Despite our efforts, we still lacked an organic sense of what Kosovo was; we lacked an image. So, we focused our energy on brainstorming the best way to serve our partner, Rev Europe, a portfolio company of MPower Ventures based in Austin with a mission to create financial services to underserved communities.
On June 1, 2010 after fundraising and meticulously planning, we finally arrived at a tiny airport in Prishtina, Kosovo. From our first few moments in Kosovo, the organic image I craved and our partner needed began to form. On the cab drive from the airport to our new home at the Professor’s Guest House, we were met with generosity, red poppies and yellow wild flowers swaying in the lush green landscape of hills and mountains. Imagine our delight when we discovered we would be working in a beautiful land with even more beautiful and generous people.
It was fresh — in more ways than one. The country is full of young entrepreneurs inventing ways to excel and build their country into all that it can be. Not to discount the work that still must be done, but it is truly amazing all that has been achieved after only two years of independence.
Our main task was to interview Kosovars about the Ipko card, a prepaid debit card that provides financial services previously unavailable to them. These services include the ability to shop online shopping and a functionality called Yap, an affordable and fair way to transfer money through cell phones. In addition to all that, our partners who have never set foot in Kosovo needed a first-hand account of the community they are servicing.
We had to find a way to distill and condense complex financial issues like remittances, foreign direct investors, idiosyncrasies in international banking programs and more into a concise Clinton Global Initiative video. With the help of a translator, we worked off a list of over 350 Ipko card users, calling each individually to set up interviews.
When we made those cold calls, they were answered with warm interest that would often result in a meeting — what we called a “date” — over macchiatos in one of the country’s numerous cafes. We did this all over Kosovo, from Prishtina, the capital city, to Peja, to Prizren and beyond. People were eager to help in our goal of documenting their stories and sharing what we found with the world.
Our stay came to a close after a month of diligent and life altering work. Now we’re back in the States, editing videos, writing articles and posting pictures all in an effort to share the image we have of Kosovo.
To me, as a newly independent nation, Kosovo exists in a unique area of growth. It is a space of young entrepreneurs creating new ways to support their local economy while pushing their roots into the global economy. This garden is in need of better caretakers, though, to remove the weeds of nepotism that scourge some aspects of business and government in Kosovo — a sentiment shared with us by Kosovars nearly everyday.
With new political leadership and more foreign direct investment from companies like Rev, the weeds will recede. Through our documentation and dissemination of images and truths with platforms like the CGI conference, Kosovo will continue to grow and attract more companies to invest in their country — a land ripe with possibilities.
Written by Kara Mckenzie, Producer of the UT Chapter of Students of the World.
Wisdom Wednesday
This week’s, and the last of, Wisdom Wednesday comes from our long-legged graphic designer, Melissa Reese. I asked the team for the best advice they have ever received, boring question I know, and Melissa came up with the most interesting, original and helpful tidbit.
“Everything in moderation … even moderation.”
Kosovo in Transition
Come to our Wrap Party
- poster by Melissa
Kosovo, a Soundslide
Wisdom Wednesday
The journalists and event coordinators on all three of the teams had the pleasure of meeting renowned journalist Bob Mann yesterday for a candid and intimate, round table discussion. He has a firm handshake, a face that could tell many stories on it’s own, a gruff voice and a black suit with a white tie, Mann shared more in an hour and a half than I have learned in a semester of class with some professors.
Mann has a long list of accomplishments on his resume including, but most certainly not limited to, reporting for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and Dallas Times Herald, lecturing at the University of Texas and press secretary to U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
On top of printing us a handout titled “What I have learned in 46 years and additional counsel I will share which, hopefully, if allowed will make life easier for each of you than it sometimes has been for Prof. Bob” he gave us a world of wisdom. Out of the multiple clever and honest stories and advice he had to share with us, this is the quote that stood out most to me.
“You don’t need to be the brightest bulb on the block, but you’ve got to know stuff.”
What Mann meant by this statement was you don’t have to be book smart, but you need to be informed. What he meant was to diversify yourself by getting the entire story and socializing with people that are the exact opposite of you. What he meant was to be honest, have integrity and try.
Photo by Lara Haase | Daily Texan Staff Elementary- and middle-school-aged children on summer vacation play in just one of the many alleys and alley-sized streets in Prishtina, Kosovo.
By Amber Genuske, Daily Texan Staff
As the youngest country in the world, Kosovo has a lot to prove. A recognized sovereign state since Thursday — with more than half the population under 25 — its future appears hopeful. Take a closer look, though, and the uncertainty of this country marked by government corruption comes to light.
It is this corruption that few outsiders are aware of, but is on the tip of every young Kosovar’s tongue. Their introduction to freedom in 2008 has given them a taste of the improvements their futures could hold and how power can increase their bank accounts.
Thirty-year-old cafe owner Petrit Selimi, CEO of Kumt Consulting and columnist at Kosovo’s Express Daily, said the corruption is evidence of the obstacles developing nations face.
“As a newborn nation, [we have] to cut the negative aspects of development [such as corruption] in its roots,” Selimi said. “And it’s a challenge because … if society is not careful, it may slide down to stages where no one wants to go. To establish a state is not as difficult as creating a successful society.”
After nearly a century as a province of Serbia and countless ethnic conflicts between Kosovar-Albanians and Serbians, Kosovo saw the end of violence after the conclusion of the Kosovo War in 1999.
Then, on Feb. 17, 2008, the country’s legislative power, the Assembly of Kosovo, established a Declaration of Independence from Serbia. Soon afterward, Serbia filed a lawsuit in the U.N. Court of Justice on the matter, but lost Thursday when the court ruled in favor of Kosovo’s independence.
Despite this achievement and a strong national pride in their newborn nation, Kosovo’s politicians are still struggling with the legalities of running a country.
These politicians include current Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, one of the many members of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, a guerilla movement during the ‘90s and a U.S.-listed terrorist organization until 1998. After the war, these members assumed positions in the developing parliamentary republic during statewide elections.
It is this lack of experience and controversial background, though, that perpetuates the cycle of money-pocketing and corrupt business deals, leading to Kosovars’ dissatisfaction.
“Once you are here for a long time, you get tired, you want see more progress, you want to see less corruption,” Selimi said. “You want to see things happening quicker.”
Johannes van Vreeswijk, chief prosecutor for EULEX, the European Union Rule of Law Mission estabished in Kosovo after the war to maintain stability through international aid, recently announced a plan to eradicate corruption in the government by September 2011.
The success of this plan is uncertain with the upcoming arrests and trials of two government officials.
Kosovo’s Minister of Transportation and Telecommunication Fatmir Limaj was arrested in April for allegedly accepting bribes. Limaj was also a member of the Liberation Army and previously stood trial — and was not proven guilty — for torturing and murdering civilians during the war.
The most recent scandal occurred July 13 when Ilir Tolaj, an adviser in Kosovo’s Ministry of Health, was arrested on the basis of alleged corruption and tax evasion.
Christopher Dell, U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, says the current politicians do not know how to create a stable society because they have always seen their country under international occupation with corruption. In order to create this stability, the current youth will need to be in power, Dell said.
“[Current politicians] do not know how to fix the country themselves,” Dell said. “It’s a generational thing, though. It will take many years, many more generations, [until Kosovo can be fixed].”
Shpend Ahmeti, economist and executive director of policy analysis group Gap, shares a similar idea that future generations have the power to create the necessary change for Kosovo to mature from a struggling nation to a thriving one.
“I would say that the biggest asset that Kosovo has is our youth,” he said. “[The youth has] the energy that you want to see in a young country, where they really want to give their contribution for success.”
This is what gives them hope — there will be a new generation in the government, a generation that experienced the war and the distorted version of freedom following it.
“One moment you are in the darkest, most depressive moment. You don’t know if your parents are alive, you don’t know when the war is going to end. And then, the war ends,” Selimi said. “Then all of the sudden there is hope. All of a sudden, there is a shift. There are things you can do with your society. You start from zero. For the first time in history you are free. That drive, that optimism, of somebody who is free for the first time is the driving force of Kosovo’s development.”
Brief Q&A with Shpend Ahmeti
Shpend Ahmeti, economics professor, executive director of policy analysis group Gap and owner of a sports bar in Pristina, provided us with an important perspective as an economics expert. Here are a few choice questions that he helped us answer during our stay in Kosovo.
Students of the World: What does it mean to be in transition in Kosovo?
Shpend Ahmeti: It means that we basically Kosovo wants to have quality of life like everyone else in the region, like everyone else in Europe. We don’t want nothing more or nothing less than any other normal country. I think the people and population of Kosovo have struggled for a long time to be where we are today so basically we just want to have dreams like everyone else does. Not just in the Balkans but in Europe in general.
SOW: What are some unique aspects that allow Kosovo to navigate the obstacles of a country in transition?
SA: I would say that the biggest asset that Kosovo has is our youth … The youth has] the energy that you want to see in a young country, where they really want to give their contribution for success. If the people believe in the future of the country; if the people want their country to succeed — this is going to happen one way or another, regardless of the obstacles along the way.
SOW: Where do you draw this optimism from?
SA: It’s probably because of the life that we lived in the past. When you compare Kosovo today to where it was in the ‘90s it’s a 180 … degrees shift … You have to get that energy because when you lived in those difficulties; when you lived through conflict; when you lived through intervention; when you lived through international protectorate; when you lived through all these things at such a young age, of course you are going to have the energy. And now you are just trying to show to everyone else that you are normal.
