The concept of life champions is expanding

Knowledge was adopted and transferred afterwards. Firstly, the coaches had learned, and then during the field activities, through work with young athletes, they applied in practice what they had learned at the initial training.

They are sports experts and professionals, but in order to become top educators for human rights in sports, we took care of this dimension through the project “Aranđelovac – the city of life champions”. Thus, during the first phase in October, 24 coaches from various sports disciplines were trained to become agents of change and empower themselves in the field of promoting positive social values through work with children and youth. On their way to the final goal, they applied gained knowledge practically through five public classes in the most popular sports in November, and then at the sports-educational camp in December, with the mentoring support from the expert team.

They also applied what they learned during daily training in the clubs they come from, which resulted in 1,500 children and young people going through the process. As the process is based on a two-way communication, due to the information obtained from the field, meetings with parents of young athletes were organized as a project “added value”, considering them as important actors in the triangle “coach-young athlete-parent”.

Project “Aranđelovac – the city of life champions” is implemented by Development Center for Youth from October 2021 to January 2022 with the financial support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe.