I am Ledja Canaj, of Albanian origin, a journalist by profession with more than 15 years of work experience in the National Media. I am a divorced woman and mother of a daughter, I am a political refugee and I started my life from scratch in Belgium. I am the Ambassador of BON, the school for the integration of foreigners, and I am a journalist of the Balkans at Radio Panik.  My first job in Belgium was as a cleaning lady and I did it with a lot of love and awareness that we cannot have a life if we do not build one ourselves!
 
I am an activist and I believe in the value system, I have high empathy and I am intolerant of injustices. I look at life in all its possibilities and I see people only as having positive potential. Even though my journey has been hard, difficult, and torturous, I still took the best of my experience in Belgium. I lived together with my daughter for a year in 6 different Fedasil camps: Brussels, Lommel, Bredene, Gent Traget, Gent Center, Koksijde…
 
I worked as a volunteer in every camp, as a cleaner, kitchen helper, and animator with children, and also did a workshop for women’s empowerment. I have interviewed dozens of asylum seekers from different continents, and I have gained lifelong friends from Africa, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Palestine… I wanted to know, the more I knew them the more I could accept my ignorance…
 
After the camp experience, I lived for a year in Brussels with Alice, a woman from Congo, myself with my daughter and she with her two young sons. We shared rent, house, work, and life… she is part of my family today.
 
I didn’t stop for a moment, even when the Police van crashed into me in September 2018, just two weeks after I had received the documents and immediately after the show I hosted on Radio Panik. And in that dramatic moment, my first thought was positive, my daughter wasn’t with me, and I wasn’t paralyzed, I should have been happy even though I was devastated and with broken teeth, I was going to make it this time too…
 
My next job experience was with Setis – Bxl, translating in the Belgian public system, an extraordinary experience very rich in diversity. I got to experience how to work in Brussels. After that, I started working for Fiber Mood, as a communication manager, and I learned the mentality of working in Flanders. I am trying to give my best because Brussels is the only home that my daughter and I have!
 
I do not deny my origin and I think that Belgium does not need people in an identity crisis, I dream of establishing the Belgian-AlbanianCultural House in 2017 because we are 122,000 Albanians in Belgium and I and many others feel the need to say Thank you to Belgium, with our contribution, our example and the motivation to give the best for the countries of origin and the host country, so allow me to continue this mission.
ShqipVille is a house that breathes only positive energy, an international network, and happy Belgian-Albanian cultural coexistence.
 
We have come this far without any financial support, grants, or political support, without money from businesses, we have come here only out of love for human being!

ShqipVille will serve as a model where diversity is wealth, where art and culture are the keywords, and where society gives and receives love, information, and solutions.
 
Where young people get inspired and where the elderly get all the recognition for their contribution.

Ledja Canaj