The fifth camp of life champions behind us

Development Center for Youth, as coordinator of the consortium made up of 20 organizations from the sports, education and youth sector from 10 European countries, has organized for the fifth time in a row the educational-sports camp “Creating Life Champions”, offering a special approach to youth education through sports.

This year’s camp is held from September 19 to 22 in Palić, with the participation of almost 200 children, coaches and experts of various profiles. Bearing in mind the location of the camp, those present at the opening have been also greeted by Nataša Aleksić, member of the City Council responsible for sports and youth of the City of Subotica.

The peculiarity of this year’s gathering lies in the fact that, for the first time, an equal number of girls and boys will gather at a football camp of this kind, and that they will put the topic of gender equality in the foreground, using sports (especially football, perceived as a classic male sport discipline) for the promotion of equal participation of girls and young women in all segments of social life. In this regard, Nemanja Radojević, special adviser to Tatjana Macura, minister without portfolio in charge of gender equality, political and economic empowerment of women and prevention of violence against women, whose portfolio includes international cooperation and youth policy, also addressed participants during the opening ceremony.

Consortium of Life Champions continues with the positive practice of joining the region, as clubs and organizations from Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece have their representatives at the camp, noting that all components of the camp – from transportation and accommodation to the educational and sports program again are free for everyone, with the aim of promoting the concept of sports for all, i.e. sports accessible to everyone.

“In addition to actively involving girls and promoting gender equality through joint activities of girls and boys, this camp will also contribute to regional connection and cooperation by teaching participants from a young age the concepts of fair play, tolerance, togetherness and teamwork. In addition, it will also allow some of the participants to have the opportunity to travel outside their country for the first time, since the commercial prices of such gatherings are high and unaffordable for the vast majority of people today. This is what we consider to be a special added value of the concept “Creating Life Champions”, which basically insists that the role of sport is to create top people – life champions, rather than top athletes – sports champions”, said Aleksandra knežević, coordinator of the concept when opening the camp.

We underline that as part of the Life Champions concept more than 20 info days have been held for children, parents and coaches throughout the region, and that over 1,000 children and coaches attended the camps themselves. Idea of the life champions, thanks to strong social support, so far have reached over 7 million people, and the project itself is being successfully implemented thanks to multi-year support from the European Union through the ERASMUS+ program in the field of sports and the UEFA Foundation for Children, as well as the contribution of socially responsible companies from Serbia.

As the idea of ​​life champions is constantly expanding, the number of clubs joining the consortium is growing day by day, and the last cooperation agreement was signed with FC Iraklis from Thessaloniki, with the announcement of new cooperations in European Union countries that have not been part of the concept until now.