This meting besides the representatives of these minorities and communities had the participation of the representatives from the State Committee for Minorities, local power bodies (Municipality, Commune), OSCE office in Shkodra, education directorates, school headmasters, police, courts and locally based NPO representatives.

Albanian Helsinki Committee, by means of its experts unfolded the good experience of the countries in transition as regards the observance of the minority rights. Likewise, there was a complete treatment of the minorities and communities rights in Albania from the juridical perspective as well as their observance in the district of Shkodra. AHC  based on the ongoing monitoring as to the situation of the minorities, submitted the conclusions and recommendations related to the observance of the rights of the Serbian-Montenegrin, Roma minorities and Egyptian community.

The meeting provided the representatives with the opportunity to discuss about the raised issues as well as to submit their claims and concerns, related to the observance of the rights of the minorities and communities they represented.

This table raised the concern of no access to education in the mother tongue in the 8-grade schools for the children from the Serbian-Montenegrin minority. This problem has also been confirmed by AHC, but the Ministry of Education and Science has argued that  there is not a substantial number of children from this  community, which doesn’t meet one  of the legal criteria for the opening of the school in the mother tongue. AHC suggested the option of opening courses for learning the Serbian-Montenegrin language if the legal criteria are met.

As regards the domain of education, the representatives of the Egyptian community and the Roma minority highlighted the concern of the high rate of illiteracy of the children belonging to these communities. Meanwhile the deputy Mayor of the Municipality, who was present in the meeting, promised opening of a school for the Roma and Egyptian children in the neighborhood “Iliria”.

There was another concern mentioned by the present people, but also by the highest representatives of the local power bodies in Shkodra – the problem of having no accurate official data related to the number of these minorities and communities. The participants highlighted that the accurate official data will serve later for drafting the policies and the accomplishment of the liabilities on the part of the Albanian state.

All the participants accepted the AHC recommendations that the state structures should devote more attention to the Roma minority and Egyptian community and it was also highlighted the idea of a more active and better coordination of the actors of the civil society in this district regarding the minorities.

AHC considers that the relevant state authorities have made efforts and have taken measures and concrete initiatives in cooperation with some non-profit organizations, for the improvement of some of the problematic fields of the observance of the rights of minorities and communities in the district of Shkodra.