Ovo su nacrti projekata koje smo uradili/radimo u okviru naše A-SMYLE Alumni grupe:
NATIONAL ANTI – SMOKING CAMPAIGN PROJECT
Submission date
June 28, 2009.
Name of Grantee(s) and group
A-SMYLE Alumni Mr. Fedja Pavlovic, Ms. Marina Roganovic and Mr. Ivan Vuksanovic
City/Town/Community where project will be completed
The range of our project is state-wide, Montenegro.
Project start and end date
Start date – August 1, 2009.
End date – September 21, 2009.
Project title
National Anti-Smoking Campaign (NASC)
Project goals and objectives
The main goal of the National Anti-Smoking Campaign is to raise awareness about smoking throughout the population of young people in Montenegro, ranging from kinder garden children to university students, and to promote a healthy, no-smoking lifestyle to young people.
The objectives of the National Anti-smoking Campaign are numerous;
- First, promotion of a healthy no-smoking lifestyle to children from the Painting School “Skolica” through their Poster contest, as well as the affirmation of children’s ideas and viewpoints in creating an anti-smoking poster.
- Second, raising awareness about the high cost of elementary school’s textbooks compared to the average spending on cigarettes per person in Montenegro, a very important issue for families with school-going children, through giving free textbooks as the prize for the winner of the Poster contest.
- Third, raising elementary and high school student’s awareness about smoking through placing posters in every university, elementary school, high school and kinder garden in Montenegro.
- And fourth, raising awareness about bad environmental effects of smoking through the action of cleaning “Slobodan Skerovic” high school from cigarette stubs.
Summary of the problem
The National Anti-Smoking Campaign project is focusing on the issue of smoking in Montenegro from its various aspects – because smoking in Montenegro is both a health, environmental, social and even economical problem. The statistics are clear – Montenegro has one of the highest percentages of people smoking in the world and therefore makes smoking one of the top issues, and the Government’s policies alone are not enough to deal with this problem – the engagement of the civil sector is very needed. The key to making progress on the issue of smoking is raising public awareness, which is what the National Anti-Smoking Campaign is devoted to. Since the target group of the NASC (National Anti-Smoking Campaign) is young people and children, whose attitudes towards smoking are yet being shaped, our project is important because it helps the youngest members of our society become aware of smoking as a bad habit and a problem.
Therefore, we believe the success of our project is important towards making a more responsible and a more smoking-aware society, which is the first step towards the long term goal of reducing the number of smokers in Montenegro.
Background
We are a group of three A-SMYLE alumni, and our Alumni network is engaged in various types of project related to helping our environment and our society in many ways. So, in a big part due to this organization, we have become more aware of the problems and needs of our society, and we have been made more responsible and active citizens – through the American Councils and the A-SMYLE alumni group we have done the “Youth and Civil Awareness” Rhetorical Competition project, which was a great success. We have focused on the problem of smoking because it is something that is very visibly affecting us and our society, and something where we, as high-school and university students, can really make a change.
Smoking is a major health, environmental, social and economical issue in Montenegro – the percentage of population smoking is almost 50% – compared with the U.S. where that percentage is 20%, EU countries where it is averagely 27%, and the Balkan region were it varies from 31% (Croatia) to 43% (BiH). The fact that an average smoking person in Montenegro spends approximately 350E on cigarettes yearly (equals one average pay) makes the problem even bigger.
On the other side, the Government has put forward a Restriction of Tobacco Consuming in Public Sites law – the 4th Clause of that law defines a public site as everything except a private residence, while the 17th Clause prohibits selling tobacco to minors, or consuming tobacco by minors. Furthermore, the 30th Clause prescribes a mandatory smoking-awareness program for students of all educational institutes. Neither one of those clauses is enforced properly, nor it can be enforced in a society with low smoking awareness. The situation is indeed very serious.
A first step towards changing that is raising young people’s awareness – their attitudes are yet being shaped, and it is a group we belong to and identify with. Young people’s awareness is also a long term benefit, because it is a foundation for building a more aware and a more healthy society. That is where our project, the NASC takes part – creative, eye-catching children-made posters in every university and high school and elementary school and kinder garden in the country – a symbolic and achievable thing with the help of the A-SMYLE alumni group and volunteers from NGO “ADP – ZID” which makes our campaign nation-wide!
Project description
The NASC is a youth awairness raising campaign whose target group is the youngest members of our society, starting from kinder garden going children to university students. The NASC campaign consists of five phases:
First Phase: August 1st – August 4th
Making necessary preparations and arrangements with the American Corner in “KIC Budo Tomovic” in Podgorica. Also, contacting Mr. Igor Rakcevic, director executive of NGO “Skolica painting schools” about the Poster contest for the participants of his painting school, and making invitations for the Poster contest event. Mr. Igor Rakcevic will, on August 1st, contact children from his painting school and inform them about the contest. The contest is open for all children attending the painting school “Skolica”, and the requirements are the following:
- Every willing contestant should submit his solution for an anti-smoking poster, containing the painting and the slogan.
- The winner is declared by the jury, consisting of four jurists, including Mr. Igor Rakcevic, who is a well known Montenegrin painter and a former professor at the Montenegrin Faculty of Visual Arts, and three project coordinators, Mr. Fedja Pavlovic, Ms. Marina Roganovic and Mr. Ivan Vuksanovic. The jury decides by a majority vote.
- Creativity is the main criteria for children’s paintings. Yet no inappropriate content is allowed.
- Creativity and humor is the main criteria for the slogan of the poster. Again, no profanity is allowed.
- The winning poster will be printed and placed in every educational institution in Montenegro.
- The prize for the winner of the contest is free school textbooks for his/her following school year.
This is also the time scheduled for the submission of children’s works to Mr. Igor Rakcevic.
Second Phase: August 5th
Organizing a public event, a Poster contest of children from the painting school “Skolica”. The event will take place in the American Corner in “KIC Budo Tomovic”, from 19.00h to 20.00h on August 5th. In the event a collection of submitted children’s posters will be shown, and a winner will be declared. The winner will not receive the prize until August 25th because yearly school textbooks will not be published before.
Third Phase: August 6th – August 8th
The third phase of our project consists of graphical editing and preparation of the anti-smoking poster for print, and the printing of the poster. We will contact Mr. Djuro Mihaljevic, a professional designer, for the graphical editing part. During that part posters will be edited so they have the American Councils logo on them, and an invitation for the Pick-Up-Stubs action on September 21st in “Slobodan Skerovic” high school in Podgorica.
As for the printing part, since there are 21 kinder gardens, 162 elementary schools, 48 high schools and the 3 universities (which equals 234 educational institutes) and up to 100 posters can be placed only in the buildings of the University of Montenegro, we need 1000 posters for this nation-wide campaign. The printing of posters is scheduled for untill August 8th.
Fourth Phase: August 8th – August 29th
Includes arranging an A-SMYLE alumni meeting, for all available A-SMYLE alumni, and purchasing school textbooks and giving them to the winner of the Poster Contest. Regarding the A-SMYLE meeting, alumni from Montenegro will be invited to help out on the National Anti-Smoking Campaign project by placing posters in schools within their communities. Alumni willing to volunteer in our project will confirm their attendance to the meeting and during the meeting, scheduled for August 28th in the American Corner in “KIC Budo Tomovic”, alumni volunteers will be given a number of posters, proportional to the number of educational institutions in municipalities they come from. In Montenegro there are 21 municipalities (Andrijevica, Bar, Berane, Bijelo Polje, Budva, Cetinje, Danilovgrad, Herceg Novi, Kolasin, Kotor, Mojkovac, Niksic, Plav, Pljevlja, Podgorica, Pluzine, Rozaje, Savnik, Tivat, Ulcinj and Zabljak) and the number of posters varies from 16 posters in four educational institutions in Andrijevica, Zabljak, Savnik, Mojkovac and Tivat to 150 posters in 34 educational institutions in Podgorica. Our alumni group counts approximately 70 people and it is undoubtably big enough to cover all municipalities in Montenegro. A day after the meeting, on August 29th, a group of alumni from Podgorica will organize the placement of posters in all educational institutions in Podgorica with the help of volunteers from NGO “ADP – ZID”.
Fifth Phase: September 1st – September 21st
In the beginning of this phase the placement of posters in 21 municipalities will be finished. This phase is the last phase of our campaign, and it is focused on raising students’ awareness through anti-smoking posters. It culminates with the Pick-Up-Stubs Action in “Slobodan Skerovic” high school in Podgorica, where all participants and volunteers in the action together clean up the country’s biggest high school from cigarette stubs, therefore promoting a smoke-free clean environment. The Pick-Up-Stubs Action is scheduled from 19.30pm to 20.30pm on September 21st. Refreshment will be provided. This action is scheduled to end the National Anti-Smoking Campaign project.
Future ideas
The National Anti-Smoking Campaign apart from being a major project of its kind made by our alumni group, is the first nation-wide project of our alumni group, relying our group’s success in the “Youth and Civil Awareness” Rethorical Competition project, whose range was regional. And for the high range of the project, future ideas are numerous – if it succeeds, it could become a traditional start-of-the year campaign for raising students’ awareness about other problems of addiction, such as drugs and alcohol, which are also very important issues for students because of the similar sitoation with the lack of law enforcement. So, if our project succeeds it will create an excellent ground for other nation-rang awareness raising campaigns on closely related issues.
“YOUTH AND CIVIL AWARENESS” PROJECT
Project start and end date:
Project start date – April 1st 2009.
Project end date – May 8th 2009.
City/town/community where project will be completed:
Podgorica, Bijelo Polje, Bar
Project Goals and Objectives:
The main goal of this project is to encourage young members of our society, such as high school students, to take action as citisens to improve the society they live in, and therefore to be responsible and aware members of their society.
The second goal of our project is to promote the culture of public speaking in the population of high school students, and therefore to promote the culture of dialogue as one of the key elements of the improvement of a society.
And, last but not the least; our goal is to promote the A-SMYLE organisation and the principles promoted by A-SMYLE and the A-SMYLE alumni network.
Our objectives are to popularise the debate teams of Podgorica and Bijelo Polje through this competition, to form a debate team in Bar, led by the coordinator for Bar, Boris Dosen, and to help build, through the volounteer teams of the competition, an infrastructure and bonds between the debate teams of Podgorica, Bijelo Polje and Bar for good cooperation on future projects.
Background:
We are a group of five A-SMYLE alumni, and our Alumni network is engaged in various types of projects related to helping our environment and our society in many ways. So, in a big part due to this organisation, we have become more aware of the problems and needs of our society, and we have been made more responsible and active citisens.
We recognise that is not the case with many of our Montenegrin peers – we believe that one of the problems that is an obstacle to the progress of our society is the lack of awareness, interest and action of citisens, especially young people, which is caused by the lack of belief in the powers of an individual citisen.
We believe that changing those attitutes is an imperative, and that organising this competition, where young people can compete both rethorics and ideas, is a good and effective way to motivate all citisens, not only the contestants, to act and improve our society.
Project Description:
A rhetoric championship is devoted to raising the civics awareness of high-school students within Montenegro. Our goal is to cover three essential regions of Montenegro: northern, central and southern by including three major cities: Podgorica(the capital),Bijelo Polje and Bar. The dates for the qualifying rounds are set: Bijelo Polje qualification evening on April 23rd, Podgorica qualifications on April 24th and Bar qualification on April 25th.
The competition consists of two rounds: qualifying and final. Qualifications will be held in the cities mentioned above and the number of students, who will have opportunity to present their speeches in the finals, will depend on how many of them apply initially. Nevertheless, we planned to host 10 finalists from three different regions:
- 5 finalists from the Central Region
- 3 finalists from the Northern Region
- 2 finalists from the Coastal Region
Logically, the final round is scheduled to take place in Podgorica, beautiful capital of Montenegro. Qualifying and final speeches will be evaluated by famous, estimable and experienced Montenegrins who contribute our society in the fields of journalism, educational system and civic non-government organizations.
In the three qualification evenings, contestants will have the same theme for their speeches. Anybody who applies for the competition will have a chance to compete in the qualifications. The contestants will have to deliver a speech on the theme “Anarchy is (not) freedom”, and the speech can not last more than two minutes. The theme of the qualifications will give contestants the opportunity to express their views on anarchy; it’s relation to individual freedom, and the problematic of civil disobedience. The qualifications are designed as a brief testing of the contestant’s eloquence, public speaking skills and education.
The approximate duration time of the qualification rounds is 2h (Bar&Bijelo Polje) and 3h (Podgorica) and therefore, in the event schedule will be included a ten minute presentation of A-SMYLE, and that way we will highlight the A-SMYLE and American Councils sponsorship of the project.
In the finals, the theme of the competition is “I HAVE AN IDEA how to change our society”. In their five-minute speeches, contestants will present their ideas for small projects, and show how the society would benefit from that. There are two types of criteria – for the best idea, and for the best speech (including public speaking skills and eloquence) therefore, jurors will give two separate grades to each contestant, one grading the quality of the idea, the other grading the speech.
The contestant’s idea has to be doable and affordable with the budget of 300 euros, and contestants in the finals will have to make a speech supporting their idea and showing how the society would benefit from that, which they will present at the finals. Also, every finalist has to write a project for his/her idea, with a budget and a detailed description.
As for the competition rules, no profanity is allowed in speeches (qualifications and finals), and any reference to a specific political party or expressing political/partisan views is strongly not recommended. Also, in the finals, contestants must focus on their ideas in their speeches, as opposed to expressing their views on the current state of the society throughout the whole speech.
What we distinguish as the highlight of our project is two-day seminar, which will be held in Podgorica as well, supported by NGO Centre for Civil Education, non-government organization which is the most competent in the areas of civics in our country. The seminar is planned to be from May 6th – May 7th, dedicated to let finalists explore the world of the conception-being a responsible and a honorable citizen, through many workshops, presentations, debates etc. Accordingly, the seminar will deliver very significant and thorough message to all finalist, who will be undoubtedly inspired to express their opinions and create as thoughtful speech for the final round, which is to be held at the following day after the seminar, May 8th 2009.
PROJECT TIME TABLE
April 1st – April 21st A campaign in three cities – Podgorica, Bijelo Polje, Bar, for the promotion of the competition. The due date for applying fot the competition is April 21st.
April 23rd Qualification evening in Bijelo Polje, held in the Culture Center Hall of Bijelo Polje.
April 24th Qualification evening in Podgorica, held in the Hall of “Slobodan Skerovic” High School.
April 25th Qualification evening in Bar.
May 6th – May 7th Two-day seminar for ten finalists in Podgorica, including workshops, briefings, and lectures on Citizen Education and Citizen Action, in cooperation with NGO Centre for Civil Education.
May 8th The finals of the competition, held in Podgorica (one of the halls in the Law University of Podgorica).
Seminar Schedule:
May 6th – Revealing the theme for the finals to the 10 finalists. Explanation of the demands and criteria of the finals. Workshop – managing a sample budget. The finalists will be explained what kind of idea is wanted. Dinner provided.
May 7th – A lecture on civil responsibility, civil awareness and civil disobedience, in cooperation with the Centre for Civil Education. Dinner provided.
For 5 participants who are not residents of Podgorica (2 participants from Bar and 3 participants from Bijelo Polje) a stay will be provided in the “Holiday” hotel in Pedagogical, including breakfast. For all contestants of the seminar and the coordinators, dinner will be provided on May 6th and 7th.
AWARDS
There will be two awards: for the best idea and for the best speech.
The Best Idea Award – 50euros gift card for the “City Bookstore” in Podgorica, and 300 euros of sposnorship for his/her idea.
The Best Speech Award – competition in a popular talk-show “Biramo Lidera” (We choose a Leader) on Atlas TV.
In order to conclude this project description, it is inevitable to mention several persons who are willing to bring up this project into real life:
Coordinator for the central region (Podgorica) – Fedja Pavlovic
Coordinator for the central region (Podgorica) – Maja Vucelic
Coordinator for the northern region (Bijelo Polje) – Vladimir Rakocevic
Coordinator for the nothern region (Kolasin area) – Ivan Vuksanovic
Coordinator for the coastal region (Bar) – Boris Dosen
Results and Outcomes:
We expect approximately 100 contestants from the three regions of Montenegro and media coverage for of the finals, therefore a great interest of high school students is expected.
We expect and hope for creative and quality ideas of contestants that show not only eloquence and pubic speaking skills but an understanding of citisen responsabilities and a will to help improve the society. If the 300 euros of sponsorship brings to real life a project that will truly improve our society – our project will undoubtably be a great success!
Future Ideas:
We believe that this project can soon develop into a traditional competition between schools not only in Bijelo Polje, Bar and Podgorica, but in many other areas of Montenegro, such as Cetinje, Pljevlja and Budva, therefore putting it in the range of a national competition. By expanding fonts for sponsorship of the winning idea, we can soon have contestants with very serious projects that will have a sizable effect on our society.
Nice job Fedja. I’m proud of you.
thanks
great project man…