From our Albanian Community Engagement Worker, Sonila Deda.
TDC have been helping me engage my community for the past 18 months, although some of us have called Brighton and Hove home for more than 2 decades, contributing to the economy of this diverse city. I was proud to get this opportunity to help build our community and lives here in our diverse city.
The Albanians in Sussex Website was born in 2016 with seed funding and was a key element to sharing useful information, activities and resources with the wider Sussex community here. Alongside this is our Facebook page, helps engage new members of our community and keeps us up to date on services and opportunities.
I have worked with some enthusiastic volunteers, planning celebratory social events and activities. The biggest being Albanian Independence Day, celebrated in November. With some generous support from Albanian business owners, including donations of time, food, and music, over 160 people gathered together, after lockdown had dominated everyone’s lives for the best part of 18 months. There was much joy and dance and a great sense of pride.
These volunteers have recently formed an independent community group and have taken on supporting their own events and networking. I am proud to be part of developing this community group, which demonstrates how much my community can meet its own needs and how much we have to offer to the wider Brighton & Hove community.
It has saddened me to see recent negative reporting about fellow Albanian migrants when I see so many positive and valuable members of our community and Brighton & Hove society.
More about our work with the Albanian Community can be found here