August 26, 2025

Vlera’s OriginAL Journey

Written by Vlera Beqiri, OriginAL alumni, June 2025

In June 2025, I had the great privilege of participating in the program OriginAL for diaspora youth powered by Germin and The Global Albanians Foundation.

Today, I would love to share my story and experiences with the program. 

Ever since I was a child, I always looked forward to every single summer and many winters, when we would drive to Kosova and visit my family. I grew up being patriotic, so naturally, I’ve always had a strong love and connection to my homeland.
But no matter how patriotic I am, as someone who grew up and lives in a foreign country like Germany, I was always limited in speaking Albanian like a native, knowing the history, and spending time with my people, compared to Albanians that grew up in their countries.

This program offered me the perfect opportunity to change that, to connect more deeply with my roots, to view my homeland from a new perspective, gain a better understanding of its history, explore new places, and meet new people who have since become friends.

I finally got to visit some of the places I used to beg my parents to go to, like Vlora and Berat. I even went back to places I’d been before, like Prizren, but saw them in a whole new way this time. We got a lot of guided city tours and visited many museums, like the Museum of the Massacre of Krushë e Madhe, which provided us with important knowledge about the history and touched us emotionally.

What also stuck with me a lot were the people and the connections we built. 
We were a group of 36 people from different countries, with different personalities and stories. Everyone was interesting and unique in their own ways. Despite our differences there was still that one thing that united us and was the reason why we were all there: being Albanian.
That alone was enough for us to come together like one big family, even though we all had different connections to our homeland.

I have already participated in exchange programs in Spain and Türkiye in the past. OriginAL is already my third experience similar to them, and yet I can say with confidence that it was the best, richest experience of my life and applying to the program was the best decision I’ve made. Every doubt I had vanished with each day of the program passing by and it exceeded my expectations completely.

If you think about participating in the program, don‘t think twice. There is nothing to lose or be afraid of and everything to gain. I promise you won‘t regret it! 

Get ready! / Bëhuni gati!

Application will open on May 25th, 2022.

Aplikimi hapet më datë 25 Maj, 2022.