On December 8th, 2020, the final conference of the ESF project “Education for work and sports in Zagreb tourism” was held at Ambitio College. Project was implemented by Ambitio College (March 26th, 2019 to December 26th, 2020) in partnership with Horvat turizam – putnička agencija d.o.o., and is financed from the European Social Fund within the operational program “Efficient Human Resources 2014-2020.“ in the full amount of 991.253,83 kuna. During this period, three innovative training programs for recreational sailing instructors, recreational windsurfing instructors and recreational kayaking and canoeing instructors were developed and implemented. Furthermore, an e-learning system was developed for all three training programs and also three professional manuals for participants for each program.
Alen Stranjik, director of Ambitio College said that training programs are formal programs approved by the Ministry of Science and Education and participants not only acquire competencies in sports, but also competences related to ways of teaching others in a particular sport, which is a great value of each program. Upon successful completion of the program participants receive training certificate. Alen also gave thanks to the partner Horvat turizam – putnička agencija d.o.o. and other collaborating organizations such as Wind Rose, Windsurfing Club Zagreb, Yacht Club Zagreb and Canoe Club Končar who gave an important encouragement to successful implementation of the training programs. Goran Božić, secretary of the Windsurfing Club Zagreb, said that the implementation of the training program for recreational windsurfing instructors has resulted with quality staff for future work not only on Jarun but also on Croatian coast. He also emphasized the importance of his networking, which led to the employment of some of the participants in centres on the Adriatic, such as Bol, Viganj and Volovski.
Target vulnerable group of unemployed persons under the age of 30 have participated in the free implementation of the mentioned programs, and 39 persons successfully completed the program. Acquisition of new knowledge and skills through these programs have contributed to employability in the field of tourism and competitiveness in the labor market of unemployed young people, which was emphasized by Miroslav Horvat, director of Horvat turizam – putnička agencija d.o.o., adding that he noticed a lack of staff in tourism and recreational sports.
Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, some participants in the training program managed to get a job this summer and gain experience working as instructors. Nika Cuculić, a participant in the training program for recreational windsurfing instructors, spoke about her experience of working at the conference. Despite many years of experience in windsurfing, Nika has implemented many new skills gained in the program into her work in windsurfing center, in which she is a co-owner. She has also hired one participant she has met on the training to work with her as an instructor. At the conference, participant Iva Ladišić shared her summer experience of volunteering at Jarun, where she taught other citizens how to windsurf,. It was a valuable experience for her.
In the following year, 2021, and after the completion of the project, Ambitio College will begin the commercial implementation of the mentioned programs for all interested persons.
Project and especially the training program for windsurfing instructors, was supported by Enrico Marotti, the best Croatian windsurfer, European and world champion, who also teaches recreational windsurfing in his own center. He pointed out that transferring knowledge is the greatest pleasure that exists and that he likes to teach others. This is the reason why he will be joining the training program for windsurfing instructors next year. He believes that investing in education is always important and therefore wants to acquire pedagogical and methodological competencies that he will apply in his work.
During the implementation of the project, a book of project results was created, which provides a simple overview of all activities and events implemented during the project. All those interested had the opportunity to review the book, but also get more information about the project and activities carried out within Project Days held at Ambitio College until December 10th, 2020.
More about the conference, as well as published press releases can be found at the following link: https://zgturizam.uciliste-ambitio.hr/press/ .
You can read more about the project at the following link: https://zgturizam.uciliste-ambitio.hr/ .
