Concept of Life Champions presented to the participants of GALE7 camp

Development Center for Youth team led by Aleksandra Knežević visited Bečej today and talked with the young participants of the fourth GALE7 camp of our famous futsal player Dragan Tomić Gale.

Focus of the conversation was on the values and messages of Life Champions, and young activists Katarina Eger and Veljko Avramović talked with young people about their perception of sport, positive and negative phenomena in sport, mechanisms of reaction and protection against everything that threatens sport and the individual in it, especially emphasizing the importance of safety and safeguarding in sports.

How to react, whom to turn to, how to talk and how to convey important messages to peers are just some of the questions that Development Center for Youth team has tried to answer, with the analysis of video material on the various challenges that a child/young person can face in sport.

The concept of Life Champions puts in the foreground creation of top people, and only then top athletes, and this is something that was also discussed with 40 participants of GALE7 camp. By exchanging opinions and views, and learning about the central role of sports in development of a young person, they joined the Life Champions family, which will also have its first generation of female Life Champions from the upcoming camp on Palić.

“We are happy that the family of life champions is constantly expanding and that today we have welcomed the children and coaches who are part of GALE7 camp. We are happy to see that more and more sports camps are turning to the introduction of an educational component in their work and socializing with children and youth, because it is a clear indicator that we are slowly but surely returning to the starting point – that sport is first and foremost a tool for socializing, connecting and educating, and only then a platform for top results. We are proud when the concept is promoted by famous athletes like Dragan Tomić Gale, because they can convey to the new generations in the best way possible what the coach meant to them in their upbringing and education, and that this role was much more than exclusively sports – that it was also educational and pedagogical one” said Aleksandra Knežević, coordinator of the concept, during the workshop in Bečej.

The concept “Creating Life Champions” is developed in partnership with 18 actors from the sports, educational and youth sectors from 8 participating countries (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Portugal, Bulgaria, Turkiye and Greece), with direct support from the UEFA foundation for children and the European Union through the ERASMUS+ program in the field of sports.