WUS Austria celebrates its 30th anniversary!
Graz. On Friday 22nd November WUS Austria celebrated its 30th anniversary. WUS Austria started with providing humanitarian aid and the implementation of the right to education in the 1980s and was mainly run by volunteers until the 1990s. Today WUS Austria has 15 employees in three offices in Graz, Prishtina and Sarajevo and provides a wide range of services.
The celebration was opened with a speech by executive director, Almir Kovacevic, followed by speeches by Xhavit Rexhaj, senior advisor in the flagship project Higher KOS – Promoting Institutional Development in Higher Education and Research in Kosovo, and Ravi Gupta, associate executive director of WUS Canada which is also the base of WUS International, including WUS committees all around the world.
Xhavit Rexhaj highlighted the significance of WUS Austria and other Austrian stakeholders for the higher education system in Kosovo and the role of Austria and its support to quality in higher education in Kosovo until today. He also pointed out that shortly before the war in 1999 WUS Austria was one of the few organizations active in Kosovo. During the war the office was operating from Tetovo, Macedonia and re-located to Prishtina after the war where the office was re-established and has been supporting the University of Prishtina , as well as other state owned and privately owned institutions ever since in their endeavor to provide quality education in Kosovo.
Ravi Gupta talked about the international movement of WUS committees worldwide, which had not been active since the late 1990s. He also emphasized plans of WUS Canada, WUS Germany, WUS Mediterranean and WUS Austria to revive the international movement in order to strengthen the work of impact of committees worldwide.
Later the afternoon the birthday cake was cut by Wolfgang Benedek, former executive director and face of the organization for two decades. Other guest included long-term partners, friends and family who have all supported WUS Austria in the past.
Today WUS Austria provides expertise inter alia in the areas of quality assurance, curriculum development, linking higher education, labor market and society, and provides technical support in project management. WUS Austria currently implements approximately 30 projects as partner or coordinator and has implmented projects in over 50 different countries. A historical overview on 30 years of WUS Austria and the international movement can be found here.
We would like to thank our guests for their indefatigable support in the past and for taking the time to celebrate with us!
