Local teacher set to oversee
municipal elections in Kosovo
By maura dowgin
Staff Writer
Jill Cerqueira is not only a history teacher in Holmdel, she is also making history in Kosovo. Cerqueira, a resident of Marlboro, will be an International Polling Station supervisor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for the upcoming municipal elections in the Balkan province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia.
"I’m pinching myself, I’m so excited." Cerqueira said.
The elections will be held Oct. 26 and are equivalent with state or countywide elections.
Cerqueira has been a teacher for 20 years with an extensive background in holocaust and genocide studies. She was a short-term observer for the security organization in Croatia in May 2001. In August 2001 she took two Serbian students to a multiethnic conference in Kosovo.
She speaks English and Albanian, which she taught herself.
"I manage to put together enough that they giggle whenever I speak," Cerqueira said.
She will go through three or four days of briefings about politics in Kosovo. She will also have to go through land-mine training.
She describes her job as "making sure international law is implemented." She must make sure that all parties are represented on the ballot, that every candidate could campaign freely in the media and everyone who wishes to vote is registered.
Cerqueira still does not know where she will be sent in Kosovo. She will leave on Oct. 17 and will be back on Oct. 30.
"The democratization process in the Balkans is an important one and this is a huge honor," she said in a written statement.
Her first trip to Israel in 1999 changed her life. On her way home she decided to stop in the Balkans to observe the destruction of war. Her trip followed a NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Slobodan Milosevic regime against the Albanians. During her time there Cerqueira visited with American soldiers stationed at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
This experience prompted her to start some programs at Holmdel High School to get her students more involved in what is happening overseas.
"I established an educational program where my students could work with Serbian and Albanian students," Cerqueira said. This program has given the students at Holmdel an opportunity to interact with students from Kosovo and learn firsthand the foreign politics their children will be learning about in history books.
The program involves interaction among students from Holmdel High School, the Serbian Jovan Cvijic School in Strpce, and the Albanian Xhevdet Doda School in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.
It was difficult to get mail and packages to the students in Kosovo the first year, so the U.S. Army delivered them. In the age of the Internet it has become much easier to get in touch with Serbian and Albanian students through e-mail.
This program brings the students from the three schools closer together by teaching each other about traditions. Holmdel exported Halloween to Kosovo one year by sending the students decorations and vampire teeth so they could have what Cerqueira describes as "an old-style Halloween party."
Cerqueira says the Serbian and Albanian schools started e-mailing each other interested in finding out what was happening at the other school. Creating communication between the next generation of Serbs and Albanians is a step forward. Cerqueira believes that creating a dialog between the two groups can raise the level of safety in Kosovo.
Her students at Holmdel also participate in the Adopt-a-Platoon Program and run a warm clothing drive every year.
The Adopt-a-Platoon Program was started by the mother of a soldier after finding out that 80 to 90 percent of soldiers do not receive mail or packages, Cerqueira said. Once a platoon is adopted, people send the soldiers letters and care packages.
The school currently has two platoons they have adopted — one in Kosovo and one in Afghanistan. "Each of our platoons have about 20 soldiers in them," Cerqueira said.
Students participating in the warm clothing drive collect sweaters and mittens to send to Kosovo.
"In Kosovo there is one power plant that cannot meet the demand of the people," Cerqueira said. Many people have their power turned off unexpectedly, and as a result can freeze to death.
"Last year the drive collected 15 to 20 boxes of stuff to send to the people of Kosovo," Cerqueira said. This is all possible due to a grant from the Holmdel Foundation for Educational Excellence.
Cerqueira is amazed by the students in her class. "Most [of the work] is done after school on the kids’ own time," Cerqueira said.