{"id":4941,"date":"2017-10-10T11:11:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T10:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/web\/?p=4941"},"modified":"2019-07-31T14:04:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T13:04:13","slug":"speech-by-rezart-spahia-oct-10-2017-opening-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/blog\/2017\/10\/10\/speech-by-rezart-spahia-oct-10-2017-opening-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Speech by Rezart Spahia, Oct. 10, 2017 – Opening Event"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests in this special evening for the founders, friends and supporters of the Martin and Mirash Ivanaj Foundations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am certain that many of you already know plenty about the life of the Ivanaj brothers, whose name graces the foundation.\u00a0 Both lawyers by training, they are distinguished personalities in the history of Albania who have a valuable contribution in the fields of education and rule of law.\u00a0 But my goal this evening is not to recount their history.\u00a0 This has been and will be done by historians and the official institutions of this country who have bestowed on the Ivanaj brothers the highest honors.<\/p>\n

For me, what makes these brothers more personal and contemporary is their return to the newly nascent and poor Albania with their strong desire to contribute in its development, after their graduation at La Sapienza University, one of the best universities in Europe of that time.\u00a0\u00a0 At a time when Albania needed many qualified professionals, the return of the Ivanaj brothers after they completed their education, although not unique, was nonetheless a rare act.\u00a0 And, almost 100 years after their return to this country, this continues to be a current theme.<\/p>\n

Given that I too am one of those few who have chosen to return to Albania after 15 years of education and experience in USA, it is my personal belief, a belief that is reinforced by Drita\u2019s history and the history of the Ivanaj family, that the desire to return to contribute is not something that is born in vacuum.<\/p>\n

Such a feeling is nurtured to the children since they are little from their families, from the educational system during their academic development and from the society in general during their life.\u00a0 It is a feeling that must have been so strong within the Ivanaj family that even Drita\u2019s Italian mother, widowed all too young,\u00a0 felt it was her mission to keep Drita\u2019s Albanian identity alive, albeit she was only five years old when she left Albania.\u00a0 It is this feeling that compelled Drita to continuously contribute to Albanian causes as an integral part of various diaspora organizations such as the Albanian American Women Organization and the National Albanian American Council (where I met her) as well as the President of the Ivanaj foundations, without getting anything in return other than moral satisfaction.<\/p>\n

This is a feeling that stems from a deep understanding of who we are and where we come from, the pride of what we are, acknowledging both our strengths and our weaknesses.\u00a0 Thus, it is not by happenchance that the mission of the Ivanaj foundations is inter alia to:\u00a0 \u201cto encourage the dissemination of knowledge in Albania\u2019s intellectual, juristic, and scientific traditions; nourish the education of the Albanian people about its valiant history, and aid in its documentation.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 It is a mission that the Ivanaj brothers lived and breathed throughout their lives and remains relevant and current to this day after almost 100 years.<\/p>\n

At a time when cosmopolitanism and globalism are trendier, if this feeling is named as \u201cpatriotism\u201d, often is viewed as anachronism and with furrowed brows.\u00a0 I call it \u201cself-respect\u201d.\u00a0 And there few people that I know who respect more themselves, their family tradition and the mission that is engrained in their family name more than my friend Drita Ivanaj, and the Foundations that she spearheads.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

REZART SPAHIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Board Member & Legal Counsel<\/strong><\/p>\n

M & M Ivanaj Foundation Institut<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tirana<\/strong><\/p>\n

October 10th, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Return to: Cultural Center Opening Event<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests in this special evening for the founders, friends and supporters of the Martin and Mirash Ivanaj Foundations. I am certain that many of you already know plenty about the life of the Ivanaj brothers, whose name graces the foundation.\u00a0 Both lawyers by training, they are distinguished personalities in the history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[{"url":"","title":"","desc":"","thumbnail":"","duration":"","rating":"","view_count":"","tag":"","cat":""}],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":0,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}