Goran Pandev with the participants of the annual conference of life champions

Development Center for Youth, as coordinator of the consortium made up of 20 educational, sports and youth institutions and organizations from Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkiye and Portugal, together with the football club Akademija Pandev Brera Strumica organized the final conference on the project on December 1 in Strumica, in order to summarize what has been done and make plans for the next period.

More than 40 participants – representatives of the aforementioned three sectors, as well as embassies, international organizations and local administrations, were greeted by the football legend Goran Pandev, who expressed particular satisfaction that his club was a long-term partner in the project. Participants’ list also included the ambassador of  Turkiye, as well as Vladimir Gjorgjevski, head of the local branch of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), as well as Aleksandar Andov, head of the women’s football team of North Macedonia, demonstrating the interest of general public for the concept of life champions.

At the conference, it was pointed out that a lot was done during 2024, as evidenced by the following figures: 6 regional info days, more than 150 informed parents and 300 children, 35 coaches who attended additional training for coaches and over 200 girls and boys who were part of the free international educational-sport camp in Palić. Special praise was given to the educational material prepared by the expert group, which should offer guidelines, examples, and information of importance to coaches in order to improve their pedagogical and educational role in working with younger categories.

“When we launched the concept, with desire to change the focus of sport from its commercial to its pedagogical and educational role, and with the intention of showing that the imperative of sport is to create top people-life champions, not just top athletes-sports champions, the core was consisted of several actors from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today in the partnership we have 20 different structures from 10 countries, with a constant growth in the number of involved partners, which tells us that the idea of ​​life champions is increasingly present in the community. In brief, our goal is a child who will happily go and return from training, without imposed imperative of results, but aware that through sports he/she can learn a lot about the world around him/her. We are especially happy to contribute to regional connection and cooperation, because we are aware that sport is one of the strongest links, which, if properly directed, connects different nations, cultures, religions”, said Aleksandra Knežević, coordinator of the consortium, opening the conference.

This year’s conference had a different format compared to all previous ones because it transferred an active role to the participants – through a panel discussion on personal impressions and observations, work in smaller groups on ideas for the next period, but also an important lecture on emotion management as one of crucial components in shaping life champions.

In addition to resulting in significant conclusions and recommendations, the conference also served as a place to share extremely important news with the participants – that the UEFA Foundation for Children will continue to support the concept of life champions in 2025, this time also dealing with children from social welfare institutions. In addition, Development Center for Youth proudly pointed out that in the period from December 2024 to February 2025, it would implement the project “Life champions against peer violence” with the support of the Cabinet of the Minister without a portfolio in charge of coordinating activities in the field of gender equality, combating violence against women and economic and political empowerment of women, inviting others to continue to promote and spread the idea in their countries.

The project “Creating Life Champions” is supported through the ERASMUS+ program in the field of sports and by the UEFA Foundation for Children, and it achieved a media partnership with TV Arena sport, as the central regional broadcaster of content in the field of sports.