Anti-Doping Agency of Serbia (ADAS) began on 25th February 2016, the peer education program on the fight against doping. The initiator of the project is Dr. Snežana Rajačić from Medical school “Nadezda Petrovic” in Zemun. Students of this school where Dr. Rajačić teaches several professional courses, on several occasions voluntarily studied the harmful effects of doping as the theme of elective classes and thereby showed interest in this area. Since Dr. Rajačić is longtime associate of ADAS, we came up with the idea to start a peer education program. On February 25th was held the first meeting with 18 girls and boys, who showed willingness to participate in this program. The idea is that they as high school students carry out education on harmful effects of doping among its peers. ADAS held meetings and lectures with student and they are trained to become peer educators. The students have formed their opinion on the subject they will teach, acquire enough data for lectures and discussions and learn the latest information on the nature of peers that pay. At the end of training, ADAS finally formed a group of 11 students who were selected to become educators on the basis of their expertise and interests. It has been shown that in these peer groups information are more easily transmitted.
The fact that there is no generational barriers facilitates communication and thus the efficiency of peer education is higher and more significant. Educators receive from ADAS uniform, materials and presentation they have to overcome before the lecture. The idea is that students are fully and as much as possible educated to pass on the knowledge to their peers.
With this project ADAS is beginning antidoping struggle in schools and among young people, which are most susceptible to bad influence. Doping substances, in addition to compromising the ethics of sport and fair play, in many cases, have serious adverse effects on the health of those who use them. Therefore, we believe that it is important that students are aware of this issue.
Since we are in Belgrade already formed a group of 11 young educators, we have a plan to spread project into three medical schools in major cities in Serbia – Nis, Novi Sad and Kragujevac.
From the schools that want to participate in this project, it is expected primarily logistical support while the rest provide ADAS. It is necessary that schools present the person who will be responsible to cooperate with the coordinators of ADAS to find children who are interested in this topic, and to ensure that the classes are organised with aim to train peer educators.
For further information please contact the coordinator of peer education programs – Dr. Marija Andjelkovic by phone 0637345226 or e-mail to test.grupa@adas.org.rs
Related articles:
