About
Us
The Lincoln Center falls under the umbrella of the Abraham
Lincoln Foundation of Albania and is the premier language
center in Albania providing language courses for children
and adults in English, German, Spanish and Albanian for foreigners,
as well as providing computer training for novice and professional
users and IT certification. Students study under top instructors
in the country. All instructors are highly qualified and have
degrees in their respective language and training fields.
Currently, the center has more than 1500 students each month
and over the last seven years has opened the doors to more
than 10,000 students. Students have included children, adults,
villagers, business men and women, parliament members and
government ministers.
Why We Exist?
The Abraham Lincoln Foundation was founded by Americans as
an Albanian non-profit educational development organization
in 1997 with the intent to provide Albanians with marketable
skills. This intent included the desire to reinforce moral
values in order to assist them in living an honorable life
and in having a fair chance in this race we call, life.
The Lincoln Center adopted United States President Abraham
Lincoln as their namesake because he was a man who fought
for the opportunity to give all men an equal opportunity to
succeed without consideration to their family background,
standing, race or religion. We at Lincoln seek to provide
Albanians with the tools they need to compete equally and
honestly in today’s world and thus give them the chance to
develop and prosper in the modern world.
The initial seed money needed to make this dream a reality
came from the Albania Education Development Project (AEDP)
of the Open Society Foundation (Soros). From 1997-2002, AEDP
used The Lincoln Center to outsource all their training programs
involving computers and the English language.
Organized Professional and Social Programs
The centers initial objectives included the creation of a
professional training center that would serve not only the
Albanian people in general, but Albanian educators in particular.
This has been the motivation for their involvement in several
projects over the past five years. These projects include
numerous teacher and school administrator training conferences,
computer training for educators and civic leaders, book publishing
(including the publishing in Albanian of the most comprehensive
book on Albanian history), and numerous conferences/seminars
on civil society and management.
During the Kosova war, Lincoln was active in serving refugees
in Albania and in Kosova. They distributed clothes for 250,000
people, opened a full-functioning 8th grade school in a refugee
camp, organized and set up bathroom facilities in the local
Tirana camp, provided professional training for many locally
based Kosavars and built or rebuilt nearly 20 homes in Kosovar
villages.
Lincoln also occasionally offers professional seminars which
include topics on periodic leadership and professional development
from a Judeo-Christian worldview.
The center also oversees a football (soccer) league for local
children.
Modern Facilities
The Lincoln Center has two state-of-the-art centers located
in the bustling capital city of Tirana. LCI is located on
the busy Qemal Stafa street in the building of the former
Polish Embassy. LCII is located in New Tirana in the former
Block Area in the home of the former dictator, Enver Hoxha.
Together, they have 22 classrooms, five modern computer labs,
a cyber café for public access and a 22,000 volume English
library.
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