The World Fellows

Political Adviser on Security, President Atifete Jahjaga of Kosovo

Garentina Kraja recently joined the staff of Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga as a political adviser on security. She is also assisting the American University in Kosovo to start up new programs, among them a new graduate program in communications and journalism. At age 19, she began working as a journalist covering the conflict in Kosovo, initially for Koha Ditore, Kosovo's first independent newspaper. An activist, she also helped establish the post-pessimists, a group of young people from the former Yugoslav states who have held "ethnic tolerance" conferences throughout Europe. Kraja was one of the first journalists to report on the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army. As a result of her coverage of sensitive topics, she was eventually forced to flee to Macedonia, where she continued her reporting as a refugee.  After the war ended and Kosovo was placed under UN rule, Kraja reported on Kosovo's Serb minority who faced reprisal attacks by ethnic Albanians.

 

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Media

Former World Fellow, now a Yale senior, Yale Daily Bulletin, January 10, 2011.

A World Away, The Yale Globalist, Fall 2008.