TIRANA – International Children’s Day was celebrated on Monday with fun activities dedicated to children at the newly reconstructed “Rinia” park in the centre of the Albanian capital. Children accompanied by their parents enjoyed the new playgrounds, toys, the concerts with songs and dances, sports games, circus and other fun activities organized by Tirana Municipality. On Monday, health authorities lifted restrictions for citizens to visit parks and playgrounds.
President Ilir Meta paid a visit to an orphanage in Tirana, where he donated books and drawing notebooks to the children. Meta stated that on this day all children, especially those without parental care and those belonging to families in economic difficulties need more love, support, understanding, health care, free education, and protection from all forms of exploitation.
The president commended New beginnings orphanage for helping some 200 abandoned children, orphans or children from families with major social or financial problems, for 25 years.
“Your mission throughout these years has been to help, support and invest in the children with major social problems, and have them educated and get them out of…poverty, preparing them for the challenges of the future,” Meta said.
On Monday via a Facebook message, Minister of Education, Sport and Youth Besa Shahini said that children have the right to live a healthy and safe life without violence or discrimination, and to receive a good education, and underlined that adults and state institutions have “the obligation to ensure these rights.”
International Children’s Day this year was also very unusual because activities dedicated to children were limited due to the coronavirus situation.
On Monday children across the country were allowed to return to kindergartens and nurseries as the government has authorized them to resume activities under strict hygiene and protective protocol.
Kindergartens and nurseries will be open throughout the summer and will give priority to children with working parents.
For more than two and a half months, all public and private kindergartens and nurseries in Albania had been closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. (Xinhua /argumentum.al}
