The winners of the art competition for the 2014 calendar of the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme EU PROGRES called “Responsibility Towards Nature Has No Limits” are Amina Ćurkić, a student of the Novi Pazar High School, Davor Filipović from the “Nikola Tesla” Technical School in Surdulica and Nemanja Đurović, a student of the Priboj High School. EU PROGRES Manager, Graeme Tyndall and Deputy Mayor of Vranje, Bojana Veličkov presented the prizes – a laptop, tablet PCs and digital cameras to the 12 best students. High school from Surdulica won the best school award at this year’s competition and was rewarded with a computer and a projector in order to improve the quality of teaching.
“This art competition extends the traditions of the previous programmes PRO and MIR, also financed by the European Union and the Government of Switzerland. This year’s title “Responsibility Towards Nature Has No Limits” relates to the environmental protection on which the quality of our lives depends. Boys and girls showed how we should all try in order to conserve nature,” said EU PROGRES Manager, Graeme Tyndall at the award ceremony held today in Vranje.
“All children participating at the art competition for the EU PROGRES calendar are praiseworthy, since they were creative and very imaginative. That is why it is important for the professors and arts teachers to constantly animate the students to create. Visual arts ennoble and enrich people. Children and youth should always be encouraged to do some useful things, to do something on their own and to create, to daydream. The works submitted for the competition were diverse. They were created using different techniques, from drawings in pencil, India ink and pen, collage, crayons, to real works of art in watercolour and tempera” explained Nataša Dimitrijević, academic painter and chairperson of the jury.
The art competition “Responsibility Towards Nature Has No Limits” was organized during November this year to support the young art talents as well as to promote European values in Serbia. The topic was selected in order to encourage the young people to think about the importance of nature conservation as one of the most important tasks of every human being with focus on recycling and energy efficiency that are the two most significant concepts of environmental protection. The intention was to allow them to present through their art works their own vision of how these concepts can improve the quality of lives in their homes, villages, municipalities or country and to present their ideas for resolving some of the existing environmental problems in their communities.
“Through their works students participating in the art competition greatly emphasized the importance of an individual in the conservation of environment. According to them, the accountability of each one of us is the key factor in reducing pollution and I couldn’t agree more. Everyone can and should give their best to contribute to the preservation of the healthy environment”, said Dejan Drobnjak, EU PROGRES Communications Manager.
The EU PROGRES calendar for the next year will also be featuring nine rewarded works whose authors received digital cameras today - Amina Nišić from Novi Pazar, Milorad Anđelković from Surdulica, Nikola Đorđević from Lebane, Irena Petković from Leskovac, Vanesa Ramadani from Bujanovac, Sadmir Hamidović from Sjenica, Dragan Đorđević from Grdelica, Daniel Ilić from Vranje and Miljana Avramović from Blace. Students from 29 secondary schools in South and Southwest Serbia submitted 139 works which is the greatest number of works arriving since this traditional competition began. Professional jury led by an academic painter Nataša Dimitrijević selected 12 best art works that are now on the pages of the EU PROGRES calendar for 2014.
Today the prizes were also awarded to primary schools “Stojan Novaković” from Blace, “Živko Ljujić” from Nova Varoš as well as to school for primary and secondary education “11 October” from Leskovac that reached the final of the competition within the eco-campaign “Where is Your Threshold of Responsibility?” implemented with financial support of the European Union and the Government of Switzerland through the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme EU PROGRES. These primary schools submitted the best proposals and implemented small projects for resolving the environmental problems in their communities during November.
Download EU PROGRES calendar for 2014: