If you would like to meet and talk with successful people and discover their stories; to find out how they overcame obstacles and achieved their goals or if you feel the need to share the challenges you are facing as well as to discuss possible solutions – we invite you to apply for the regional, year-long Creative Mentorship program.
Create an atmosphere for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experience for yourself.
We also held an online event to present the current open call as well as the Creative Mentorship team and the programme itself. Some alumni also shared their impressions and experience. You can view the video recording, on our Facebook page.
Creative Mentorship is a unique mentoring programme, created in Serbia, that supports the professional and personal development of individuals, professionals, and future professionals active in the domain of culture, art, creative industries, and media. The programme exists already 9 years, and it gathers 250 ambassadors of the Creative Mentorship creating a unique community of motivated and socially responsible individuals who contribute to the improvement of society through creativity, knowledge, and cooperation.
The programme primarily affirms and encourages mentorship as a way of a lifelong process of learning, exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experience between established experts, mentors, and future professionals, mentees. The main activity for participants – mentees, is year-long, individual support from a mentor, chosen by the Creative Mentorship team, according to the needs, goals and challenges of selected mentees. Mentor’s role is to support mentees in achieving their goals, overcoming challenges they are facing and offering them support on a professional and personal level, through sharing of knowledge, experience, and perspectives.
Along with year-long mentoring support, the programme offers relevant training, lectures and debates on relevant topics important for the work and development of the participant, as well as connecting, networking and exchange with other engaged and active individuals that programme gathers. In that way, through gatherings and opportunities to meet in person other mentees and mentors during the programme, the participants have an opportunity to even discover common points and start a cooperation. Besides that, all the participants have the continuous support of the Creative Mentorship team, promotion of their work and achievements during the program, and even after that, when they become members of the alumni network.
The 6th cycle of the Creative Mentorship program is regional!
There will be 25 participants selected, coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia – current and future professionals in the domain of culture, art, media, and creative industries, coming from the public, civil or private sector or who are independent.
Potential participants in the program should be active in one of the various areas of the most widely understood field of culture, which includes, but is not limited to: art, cultural heritage, creative industries (design, architecture, fashion, film, photography, gaming, music), cultural policies, education in culture and through culture, management and production in culture, research in the field of culture, culture for children and youth, socially engaged culture and art, culturology, media production, international cultural cooperation, and other related fields. Potential participants in the program can also come from the media.
Formal education in any of these areas is not a prerequisite for participation, but past, current, or future work, a desire for further professional development, and relevant achievements for the cultural and media scene.
Although the program is primarily intended for those who are already professionally active and have achieved results in some of the above areas that are the focus of the program, participants in the program can also be individuals who are currently in the process of formal education. Also, it is not relevant for the choice to participate in the program whether they are unemployed, part-time, volunteers, entrepreneurs, independent artists, or other.
FOR DETAILED EXPLANATIONS AND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS RELATED TO APPLICATION, CONSULT THE FAQ DOCUMENT.
Participants from previous cycles came from various parts of Serbia and were engaged in different areas of culture, art, creative industries, and media. They all had in common the motivation to work on themselves, to improve themselves, and to work on achieving their goals, both on a professional and personal level, with the assistance of their mentor. This year’s call is regional and we encourage all potential participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia to apply.
Miloš Milovanović, bass player and founder of the festival „Bass passion“, television producer and presenter; Katarina Ivakić, enterpreneur and initiator of the first body positivity community in Serbia „Kataliza”; Maja Ćurčić, president of the association „Art Aparat” who teaches and empowers children and sensitive social groups; Milesa Milinković, director of the international festival „Uhvati film”; Nikola Andonov, architect who represented Serbia at the Venice Bienale in 2012, initiator of the Fab-Lab; Marko Radenković, founder of the first design incubator in Serbia „Nova Iskra”; Lidija Ham Milovanović, associate for public relations at the National Museum in Belgrade; Vesna Ivanović, librarian at the school library in the vilage Mačkat; Andrija Mamutović, awarded pianist from Niš; Bojana Bačić, journalist of the daily newspaper “Danas” at a time; Bojana Lukić, painter and author of children’s workshop on the topic of visual culture; Dunja Pešut, serbian language professor in Bačka Topola; Dušan Kalejski, drama teacher from Zrenjanin; Marina Prohaska, digital communications manager in NGO sector; Milan Marković, curator and lecturer at the National Museum in Smederevo; Lana Nikolić, journalist of the radio Beograd 2020 at that time Lidija Milašinović, director of the National Museum in Kikinda and many other, talented, proactive and dedicated professionals.
The importance of the contribution so far in the field of culture, art, creative industries, media, cultural heritage, and other areas mentioned above – we look at this experience in relation to launched initiatives, implemented projects and various achievements, and especially appreciate activities, projects, and practices that show personal initiative whether they are volunteer, within an organization, institution, team or you as an independent professional.
Innovation and authenticity in approaches and practices – the desire to explore new approaches and experiment, find your own expression, improve existing practices, whether it is an innovative idea, the way you work, organize activities, communicate your ideas or approach the creation of works of art.
Commitment to the development of society and contemporary social phenomena – through this criterion we value those individuals, their ideas, and projects that connect culture, art, creative industries, and media with contemporary social and political challenges and take part in activism.
The goal you aim to achieve during the year of working with a mentor and participating in the program – it is important that potential participants, before thinking about applying for the program, clearly think about what specific goals, ideas, or projects they want to commit to during the year with the support of a mentor.
A particularly important aspect of the program is its multidisciplinarity, with a focus on intersectoral networking – the program includes mentors and mentees from the civil, public, and private sectors, while the mentors in the program are local or foreign professionals from various fields – culture, arts, diplomacy, business, politics, social sciences, education, management, human resources, marketing, media, and other fields.
The aim is to encourage networking, exchange, and cooperation by selecting mentors from different sectors, generations, and professions, who come from different countries in the region, as well as to enable mentees to gain specific knowledge and experience in other fields, which are otherwise generally inaccessible to them
NOTE: The Creative Mentorship team will regularly monitor the epidemiological situation and will revise and adapt the workshop plan accordingly. If the conditions require it, for the safety of all participants, the entire program will take place online, including 2 main events.
Olga Svoboda, director of solutions development at TACK TMI, global company for consulting and coaching; Ivan Milivojev, one of the founders of various festivals in Serbia and region: EXIT festival, Warriors Dance Festival, Sea Dance Festival, R:EVOL:UTION i #DEV9T; Iva Čukić, director of the Institut for Urbane policies, founder and program director of the Street Gallery; Anđelka Janković, producer and culturl enterpreneur, marketing manager of the Bitef festival; Nathan Koeshall, director and co-founder of Catalyst Balkans, who promotes philantropy development in the region; Mihailo Janković, former director of the Nectar Group company, awarded for develeopment of leadership among youth; Lazar Džamić, creative strategist, former leader of the brand strategy team at Google think-thank ZOO in London; Natali Beljanski, executive director of the Street Musicians’ Festival in Novi Sad; Joachim Waern, deputy chief of mission at the Swedish Embassy in Belgrade; Miša Stojiljković, journalist, psychologist and media consultant; Ana Pejović, former project manager at Krokodil organization, Toni O`Brajan, former director of Britsh Council for Western Balkans; Jasna Dimitrijević, director of Ilija M. Kolarac Endowement; Milan Savić, director of the international saxophone fesjival „Belgrade Saxpirience“; Marija Desivojević Cvetković, vicepresident of Delta Holdinga; Maja Lalić, creative director of Miksera; Branislav Dimitrijević, art theoretician and teacher; Milan Petrović, former president of the Serbain Association of Managers; Helen Laršon, former cultural attaché at the Embassy of Sweden in Belgrade, and many others.
Discover more about alumni mentors from previous cycles, as well as their impression on the program on the page Alumni network.
Participation in the Creative Mentorship program is free, thanks to mentors who contribute pro bono to the program, as well as sponsors and program partners who recognize the value and potential of Creative Mentorship and support us from year to year. The program charges a one-time fee in the amount of 3,000 RSD for processing applications from Serbia, or 25 EUR for applications from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro (detailed instructions on payments can be found in the text of the open call for the 6th cycle).
Within the program, several scholarships will be awarded to those participants who are not able to cover travel expenses, and in that way, a part of their travel expenses will be covered for participation in 2 pieces of training that are held live in Belgrade.
All those interested in participating in the program should apply by September 21st at 23:59h by submitting the application form, attaching a recent and up-to-date CV in English or their mother tongue, as well as a scanned payment slip as proof of payment.
All the instructions necessary for payments are available in the text of the open call.
Important:
Filling in the application form may take a few hours, and we suggest you take enough time for it. Before submitting the final version of your answers, take some time to think about them. You can see all the questions right away, but there is no possibility to make a pause in finishing once started to fill in the answers. You have to fill the form in one go, but we recommend reading it thoroughly and preparing your answers in advance. All candidates will receive an automatic confirmation of application and a copy of it.
Organizers will not give individual feedback on applications.
For more information on the Creative Mentorship organization, you can visit the page About us and the page dedicated to the Programme. To find out more about the methodology on which the program is based, you can find out more in the Base of knowledge.
Consult the FAQ document in order to find numerous useful information!
Should you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact us at info@kreativnomentorstvo.com or via social networks.
