August 13, 2010

13. August 2010.

SPORTS AND TOLERANCE CAMP AT VLASINA LAKE

56 elementary school students participated in the first “Sports and Tolerance Camp” at Vlasina Lake. A group of physical education teachers from South Serbia came up with the idea of organizing this kind of event for schoolchildren.

Eight teachers of physical education from Donja Trnava, Cokot, Leskovac, Medvedja and Sijarinska Spa selected seven students from each school to participate in the recently set up camp.

„It is interesting that children aged from 12 to 17, who are from regular and multiethnic schools, as well as from basketball clubs and schools for children with special needs, stayed at one place. The participants of the camp were for the first time in touch with specific groups of children. There were five Albanian elementary schoolchildren from Sijarinska Spa there. The fact that they could hardly speak any Serbian wasn’t an obstacle for them to associate with the other participants in the event,” said Marko Ristic, a teacher of physical education and coordinator of the project.

The conditions for participating in the camp were simple. Excellent marks in the school report were not a prevailing condition for children to stay in the camp, but the fact that they actively participated in sports and conducted themselves well.

During a five days’ long camp, the participants in it competed in the “Tolerance Basketball Tournament”, while the names of basketball team members were picked out of a hat.

Apart from playing basketball, the children also played football, ran of the trim-track and underwent a physical training. However, they also participated in a few workshops, where they were thought about and where they discussed tolerance and violence.

„I must point out that the children began associating with one another as early as the second day of the camp. They made friends with one another not on the basis of where they had come from, but on the basis of their interests”, Mr. Ristic said.

Two years ago, Mr. Ristic, along with nine other persons from Serbia, was a member of a sports delegation, which stayed in the USA for around a month.

„We participated in the „Youth and Sports” project, which was funded by the USAID. Upon our return home, we were eligible for a youth and sports grant. We very quickly agreed to organize this kind of a camp”, Mr. Ristic said. He believes that a similar camp will be set up next year, too.