The Vidovdan Diaspora Assembly will be held on 1 and 2 July in Belgrade and currently numbers over 260 of our compatriots from the region, Europe and the world, said acting minister of education Đorđe Milićević.

‘There will be an official part within the Vidovdan Assembly, to be followed by panel discussions. The panel discussions are thematic and tailored, they are the sphere of interest of our compatriots and our associations of umbrella organizations’, said Milićević.

He added that one of the topics would be the economy in order to motivate businessmen and their partners to invest in Serbia and to continue their business in Serbia.

‘Our goal is to organize such investment conferences in other cities and countries outside of Serbia by December. At those investment conferences, representatives of local self-governments present their potential to our successful businessmen and their partners, introduce the local self-government’s potential to intrigue them and their local self-governments to invest in Serbia. It is a thematic panel’, Milićević said.

According to him, the second thematic panel deals with education, opening of supplementary schools for diaspora children to improve and learn the Serbian language.

‘It is a project of the Ministry of Education and I think it is a great and excellent project. There are certain quotas that must be met regarding the number of students, and the number of students is linked to the number of teachers. Provided those quotas are met, and I see that all the countries that have applied so far have a sufficient number of students, a teacher is assigned to lead the process further and there are coordinators for some countries to coordinate the entire activity’, said Milićević.

He noted that the third very important issue was the cultural and historical heritage and that speakers at that panel would be the people well versed in Serbian cultural and historical heritage and well connected with the diaspora from before. The fourth is a panel discussion, which will include participation of the organization Point of Return which will present its experiences, observations and suggestions.

He also said that the day before a contract had been signed with 20 municipalities on holding 22 summer camps during the following three months.

‘As soon as we finish the Vidovdan Assembly, we move on to the next activity, which is summer camps with three thematic areas – scientific and educational or eco-camp, cultural and artistic societies because our Serbs mostly gather within the cultural and artistic societies, and the third – a sports camp. Through our ministry, the Government of the Republic of Serbia covers all costs of the children’s stay, from the trip to the stay here in Serbia’, said Milićević and added that the overall goal was for youth from the diaspora to get to know not only Belgrade, but also the interior of Serbia and its cultural and historical sights.

Source: Tanjug – Radio Television of Serbia

Photo: Tanjug (Rade Begović)