Milan Todorovic, a student of the Technical School "Nikola Tesla" from Surdulica, has won the first prize in the art competition for the 2016 calendar of the European PROGRES Programme, whose theme was "Europe in my neighbourhood", while the second and third place went to Milos Djordjevic from the Grammar School "Bora Stankovic" in Vranje and Stefan Jovanovic, a student of the Technical School of Design in Leskovac.
The prize award ceremony and the promotion of the calendar were held today at the Cultural Centre in Leskovac, where the European PROGRES Programme Manager, Mr. Graeme Tyndall, and Mayor Goran Cvetanović presented 12 best secondary school students, whose artworks are on the pages of the 2016 European PROGRES calendar, with the laptop, tablets and mobile phones. The European PROGRES calendar for the coming year will feature, besides the first three prize winning works, the artwork by Nenad Drugović and Erna Paljevac from Nova Varoš, Milan Veličković and Aleksandra Stojanović from Surdulica, Amar Hadžibegović from Novi Pazar, Reqibe Neziri from Preševo, Milena Milošević from Leskovac, Sadmir Hadžibegović from Sjenica and Jovana Stefanović from Aleksinac.
Based on the number and the quality of works submitted, the Technical School "Nikola Tesla" from Surdulica has been declared the best school, and received as a reward a laptop computer, a projector and a projection screen.
As pointed out by Graeme Tyndall, the European PROGRES Programme Manager, so far this event has been a symbol of New Year and now it is becoming a symbol of new ideas as well. "Young people from South East and South West Serbia have demonstrated, through their project proposals, in addition to great creativity and talent, their desire to obtain education, attend cultural events in their communities, improve environmental protection and, what is especially important, to take care of the most vulnerable population. “You have shown appreciation for the genuine European values, and I hope that European PROGRES, supported by the European Union and the Swiss Government, will be able to assist the implementation of projects in these areas”, said Tyndall and congratulated the participants for thinking about the ways to improve their environment and make their future in Serbia better.
Leskovac Mayor Goran Cvetanović congratulated the awarded students, and expressed satisfaction at the cooperation with the European PROGRES Programme and its predecessor, EU PROGRES Programme, which supported projects in Leskovac worth more than EUR 800,000 through the funding provided by the European Union and the Swiss Government.
The European PROGRES Programme has continued the tradition of organizing art competitions for secondary school students, established by the predecessor development programmes PRO, MIR and EU PROGRES and financially supported by the European Union and the Swiss Government. The art competition for the 2016 calendar of the European PROGRES Programme was organized in the course of October and November 2015 for high school students in 34 municipalities of South East and South West Serbia. 117 artworks from 29 schools were submitted for the competition which through this year theme aimed to encourage young people to think and actively participate in the potential projects that would contribute to improvement of the quality of life in local communities, especially of the youth.
All those interested in the artworks have the opportunity to visit the exhibition of students' works on the premises of the Leskovac Cultural Centre by 31 December 2015.
