EU PROGRES

Samra Šabanović, a student of the Novi Pazar Leather and Textile Design Secondary School, Maida Turković, a student of the Priboj  High School, and Justina Vidosavljević, a student of the “Stevan Jakovljević” High School in Vlasotince, are the winners of the art competition for the 2013 Calendar of the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme EU PROGRES on the topic “Welcome to My Europe”. EU PROGRES Manager Graeme Tyndall, representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia Ana Stanković and academic painter and Novi Pazar University Professor Ervin Ćatović today presented the prizes – a laptop, tablet PCs and digital cameras to the 12 best students. The Medveđa Secondary School “Nikola Tesla” was declared the best school at this year’s competition. It will be awarded 120,000 RSD worth of school equipment of its choice.

“I am glad that we organised an art competition for young people at the end of this year, which I think was a successful one. This is one of my favourite events because it encourages young people to artistically express their thoughts about a specific subject. EU PROGRES continued the tradition of its predecessor, the PRO programme, now in its seventh year, during which the competition topics covered all the major aspects of development – cultural diversity, environmental protection, and so on. Since EU PROGRES will be operating for another year, we hope that we will organize this competition on another topic next year as well,” EU PROGRES Manager Graeme Tyndall said at the awards ceremony held in Novi Pazar today.

“The young artists have covered a broad range of art subjects and applied diverse techniques, painting motives from the local regions and European cultural environments. They approached the topic responsibly and abided by the competition rules. The jury responsibly abided by the propositions and the general rules. This is why, in my opinion, the prizes, which were awarded to those who deserve them the most, fully reflect the careful and refined selection and the recent work of the jury I, too, am a member of,” the Chairman of the jury, Professor Ervin Ćatović, elaborated today.

Apart from the three young ladies mentioned at the beginning, the EU PROGRES 2013 Calendar will be graced also with the works of nine other authors, who were today awarded digital cameras - Marija Milošević from Medveđa, Miloš Đorđević from Surdulica, Jovana Kostić from Vlasotince, Zorana Jovanović from Vranje, Irvina Kočan from Novi Pazar, Sahadeta Hasani from Preševo, Ana Petrović from Prijepolje, Nikola Đorđević from Lebane and Marijana Nikočev from Raška.

The topic of this year’s competition “Welcome to My Europe” is based on the fact that Serbia has always been a part of Europe geographically, historically and culturally and that European values have traditionally been nurtured across Serbia and among its citizens. The students of 30 secondary schools in South and South-West Serbia submitted 131 works for this year’s competition. The professional jury, chaired by painter Ervin Ćatović, selected the 12 best artworks that were published on EU PROGRES’ 2013 Calendar.