Krokodil Assotiation’s newest project, “Sneakers for Running – Books for Listening”, is part of the European project “Be (P)Art. Grow with arts”, organized in a partnership between UC Limburg (BE), Szepirok Tarsasaga (HU) and Fundación Uxío Novoneyra (SP) and leaded by PEN Català.
The focus of the activities of this three-year project is to make literature more appealing to young people, primarily because of its key role in understanding the world, developing critical thinking and skills of creative problem-solving, as well as the beneficial influence of reading on mental health. Having this in mind, with this project in Serbia, we are starting to introduce the practice of listening to audiobooks with recreational running and the synergetic effect of reading, that is the effects of listening to books and physical activity on physical and mental health. The goal is to create an interest in sport enthusiasts for the world of literature, so that they can enrich their training with audiobook; as well as introduce the benefits of physical activity to young writers and literature lovers. Many well known writers, who are recreational runners, can attest to the connection and relationship between these two fields: Haruki Murakami, Ante Tomić, Srećko Horvat, Vladimir Arsenijević, and Nebojša Vujanović to name a few.
So in 2020, during November and December, Krokodil Assotiation organized research in the form of focus groups and a questionnaire to establish what were the dominant lifestyles of our target group. They talked to active recreational runners about if, what, how and when they read; and with young people engaged in culture, if, how often and in what way they engage in physical activity. The results of this research will serve Krokodil Assotiation in the following stages of the project, so feel free to answer the QUESTIONNAIRE or share it with your friends and colleagues!
