Author: Development Center for Youth

On January 26, the second generation of the project “Creating Life Champions”, whose piloting began in 2018, was officially launched in Belgrade. The event, opened with a press conference, was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia, from which the project coordinator – Development Center for Youth comes, while His Excellency, the Ambassador of the Republic of Türkiye and representatives of the diplomatic corps from the participating countries also strengthened it with their presence.

We dedicated the year behind us to additional capacity building, new partnerships and promotion of our ideas to the general public, preparing for serious undertakings from 2023. However, this did not prevent us from realizing numerous activities, remaining recognized for our dedication and field work.

Young activists Katarina Eger and Veljko Avramović continue to spread ecological ideas among young people, this time discussing green policies with high school students of VIII Belgrade Gymnasium, from the Department specialized in biology and chemistry. Dynamic workshop was realized as part of the project “Environmental Mobility By Raising Awareness on Changing our Earth – EMBRACE” whose coordinator is the USB association from Greece, and its aim was to bring the concepts of ecology and sustainable development closer to young people.

There is another good news for the end of 2022 – at its last annual meeting, the Programming Committee on Youth included the “Voice of Youth is the Voice of the Future” project on the list of international activities approved by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe.

Veljko Avramović represents Development Center for Youth at the first international meeting aimed at networking and joint development of project ideas, organized by our long-term partner, the United Societies of Balkans (USB) in Thessaloniki from December 6 to 10.

With the support of the European Commission, USB gathered almost 20 European organizations dealing with various fields within the EU program, all with the aim of establishing and intensifying cooperation, exchanging project ideas and preparing for their joint submission in 2023.

Young trade union members are not just a number in their general statistics – they are a driving force that can influence the needs and priorities of young people through their actions, affecting the entire society.

The concept of life champions continues to develop, from December 1 also with the support of the UEFA Foundation for Children, which recognized the value and importance of proposed idea to create a new generation of active and thinking citizens using sport as an important tool of education. The foundation that promotes the message that every child is a champion in the open call for projects for 2022 has shown that it values the ideas contained in the concept of life champions, supporting the partnership of Development Center for Youth with DEKI5 football camp and the Pandev Academy.

Wishing to remind that sport is not only about high fees, advertisements, elite competitions, but that in its essence there are socializing, fair play, learning true values and individual development, Development Center for Youth from Belgrade presented in 2019 the concept of “Life Champions”. The concept focuses on creation of good people – life champions, starting from the importance of the role of trainers as educators and pedagogues, but also of parents and club management as significant support in the process itself.

That FC Barcelona is “more than a club” has been confirmed by the meeting held at the Barcelona Football Academy by Aleksandra Knežević, program director of Development Center for Youth and coordinator of the Life Champions concept, and Jordi Arasa, technical coordinator APAC of Barça Academy.