Mensa and the Office for European Affairs wish to invest in the country’s future

Novi Sad, 12 December – The Office for European Affairs and Mensa Serbia have announced partnership with reference to joint projects, which is the conclusion reached at the reception the Office for European Affairs organised in the honour of Ranko Rajović, Phd, Executive Director of Mensa Serbia.

Mensa is an organisation which gathers people with special potential, therefore, it is in the interest of the Executive Council of AP Vojvodina and other institutions to exploit that potential in the best possible way. The best are expected to achieve the best results. One of the critical factors in strengthening our European perspective is that that the most talented ones should also contribute to it that all the good which can come from the European Union do come to our country. At the moment, not only the amount of IPA Funds represents a great challenge, but also the capacities built for efficient project development and implementation. “I am pleased to say that we have agreed to cooperate more closely with respect to the role of these two organisations in offering assistance to municipalities and other organisations which can apply for IPA Funds and be the beneficiaries”, said Predrag Novikov, Director of the Office for European Affairs. The following Mensa projects, which could receive support, were discussed in the meeting: “Detection of Talented Children”, by means of which pedagogues in preschools would be trained to recognise talented small children, “Danube Postcard”, which gathers Mensa organisations from the countries in the region, and “Summer School”. The latter could be extended to include Mensa members from Europe, for which it is necessary to introduce English as a working language, since they have been held in Serbian so far, and young people from Diaspora and neighbouring regions participated in it as well. It is necessary to invest into young people for the development of the whole country and each one. Countries which are more developed than ours and which have been engaged in it for a long time testify that it takes at least 20 years to return what has been invested into.

Ranko Rajović, Phd, said that regional authorities in Novi Sad have already provided institutional support, which is why the seat of Mensa in our country is in the capital of Vojvodina. “We expect that in cooperation with the Office for European Affairs and the Executive Council of AP Vojvodina, we will be working more closely with Mensa organisations all over Europe and the world, in which our members of the Department for the Talented, who are either studying, or who have already graduated from prestigious universities – Oxford, Lomonosov, Heidelberg, Yale, Harvard, M.I.T., will help us”, said Rajović. Thanking for the support of the Executive Council, Rajović said that today Mensa has approximately 120,000 members, and that the Novi Sad Mensa is the fourth one in Europe as per its membership. The lowest IQ necessary for the entitlement to Mensa membership is 148 scored in tests, said Adrijana Nadoveza, member of Mensa presidency, and added that the next testing will be in spring 2008.