EU PROGRES

Students Antigona Sulja from the “Nikola Tesla” Technical School in Medveđa, Dalida Muškić from the Prijepolje and Danilo Cerović from the Prokuplje High Schools are the winners of the art competition for the 2012 Calendar of the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme - EU PROGRES. The prizes, video and still cameras, were awarded to the winners by Chief of Operations III Andrew Headey, EU PROGRES Manager Graeme Tyndall and academic painter Zoran Krulj. The Vlasotince High School “Stevan Jakovljević” won 100,000 RSD and the Blace Secondary School and Raška High School each won 50,000 RSD, with which they will purchase the school equipment they need.

“We organised the art competition with the financial support of the European Union and the Government of Switzerland to support talented young artists and encourage them to think about the wealth of diversity in their communities. The topic of this year's competition is devoted to the UN global initiative Alliance of Civilizations and aims at promoting the rich cultural, ethnic, religious and historical heritage of this country, which globally and historically represents the crossroads of various traditions, cultures, ethnic groups and religions,” EU PROGRES Manager Graeme Tyndall said at today's ceremony in Leskovac at which the calendar was officially presented.

During the award ceremony, Andrew Headey said: “The topic of this year’s competition Serbia – Embracing Civilisations was a complex one but the young artists responded extremely creatively to it and demonstrated that the wealth of diversity is a value in this country.” 

The pages of the EU PROGRES 2012 Calendar will also include works of nine other authors who were awarded still cameras at today's ceremony - Nikola Zlatanović from Žitorađa, Samra Dupljak from Novi Pazar, Shemsije Avdiu from Bujanovac, Anđelija Marinković from Leskovac, Lazar Pavlović from Raška, Andrija Popović from Blace, Sreten Kalinić from Vlasotince, Sara Stojanović from Grdelica and Ignjat Stanojević from Lebane.

The art competition on the topic „Serbia-Embracing Civilisations“ was organised in October and November this year with the aim of supporting talented young artists and promoting cultural, ethnic, traditional and religious diversity, as Serbian and European value. The jury, chaired by academic painter Zoran Krulj, selected 12 of the 119 works submitted by 27 schools in 25 South and South-West Serbian municipalities to decorate every month in EU PROGRES’ 2012 Calendar.