А new contract within the Еrasmus + program signed

By signing the Grant Agreement, Development Center for Youth has entered initial preparations for the project “Standing Together for a healthier and safer community” which will start on January 1, 2021.

Through the same, football coaches will gain new useful knowledge for working with children and youth; children will travel, socialize and train together at regional camps, getting to know their football idols along the way; clubs will get additional equipment for children and uninterrupted work with youth sections.

The project will be implemented in partnership with actors from the sports, youth and education sectors (local football clubs, youth organizations and faculties for sports and physical education from North Macedonia, Turkey and Romania), through support of the ERASMUS+ program of the European Union. It includes 7 countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania and Turkey.

General goal of the project is to revitalize the educational and pedagogical role of sports (football, in this particular case), using the impact that football coaches have on children and youth. We want to develop, test and prepare a module/program for coaches on how to use training and constant work with children and youth in order to bring them closer to other topics of importance for everyday life through sports. This time we focused on health and safety issues (both individually and collectively, with a special emphasis on COVID-19), as our common observation is that children do not know much about this important segment of life.

Educational sector will help in developing the most appropriate format for work in the form of a new module for training of coaches, youth sector will help in introducing non-formal education (methods and access to children and youth) in sports activities, while the clubs involved will test developed model in their own environment (FC Grafičar, FC Sloga, FC Gorica, FC Maribor and FC Pelister) and jointly, at football camps.

The project will include a number of different activities: research and professional work on development of training module(s); training of football coaches for the adoption of developed module; application of acquired knowledge in clubs from which football coaches come and in joint camps, as well as a promotional campaign that underlines the educational role of sports.

Believing in the important social role of football, this time we put it in the context of informing children and youth in sports about current health and safety risks, and the results we strive for can be summarized in 25 trained football coaches, a minimum of 250 children to go through activities and 50,000 people from general population who will get relevant information through the accompanying promotional campaign.

More information follows.