Development Center for Youth becomes part of the family of champions of the uefa foundation for children

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.

We remind that the concept of life champions starts from two important assumptions – if we want to use sport as a tool for education, it is important to start the educational process from the earliest age, as well as that the best influence on children and young people can be achieved by coaches, keeping in mind their special role in the upbringing and education of participants of their sports activities. That is why the project focuses on 30 coaches of younger categories from the region, and over 2,000 children up to 15 years of age who will be included in sports and educational activities, both through international camps and through regular training in the clubs the coaches are coming from.

When choosing the coaches who will implement the process and children who will be part of it, we will pay special attention to the regional dimension, as well as to gender equality, with efforts to reach out to local clubs and sports schools with strong female sections, and we will also take care of the appropriate representation of children who come from socially disadvantaged categories.

Furthermore, following the principle of “nothing about them, without them”, we will make additional efforts to ensure the participation of those children who would otherwise not be able to attend these activities due to financial obstacles, regardless of their sports potential. We also plan to create conditions for the inclusion of more children with specific health situations, giving them the opportunity to bring a personal assistant and/or providing them with qualified medical staff to monitor/care for their health status. As before, the focus of the camps will be on creating life champions, and that is why values such as respect for diversity, solidarity, teamwork, following the concept of sport for all, and all in accordance with the slogan “all different, all equal” will be put in the foreground.

We are looking forward to expert work on development of a program for education in sports/through sports (with recommendations, advice, educational games), 6 regional info days to present the concept of life champions, regional training for 30 trainers for further usage of developed program, transfer of acquired knowledge and skills to at least 2000 children through international camps of partners – DEKI5 camp and Pandev Academy, as well as local training, 6 parent meetings and an international final conference aimed at creating plans for the future.

Development Center for Youth with partners proudly joins the UEFA Foundation for Children’s family of champions, making its own contribution to the idea that every child is a champion through dynamic project activities to be realized together with DEKI5 camp and Pandev Academy.The project will also include a number of informal partners from the educational, sports and youth sectors with the idea of developing a concept of work applicable in different environments and with different categories of young athletes.