_Have you ever though that the punches and kicks in martial arts, can be used for something else instead of fighting? Have you ever thought that on one martial arts practice can be learned something of great life value? Have you ever thought that the most common society issues can be solved throughout the martial arts?

NGO Integrity Alpha Omega has developed a new way, new innovative approach to the everyday society problems, and that approach uses the martial arts as a tool to influence the young population. This project will combine ethnic differences, economical or class variety into six separate sporting weekends. Three martial arts clubs, with each club representing its own respective martial art or style, will join up every second weekend in the following three months, beginning in February, to train together. Besides training, the participants will be working on developing a Code of Conduct, which will include: ways on overcoming the lack of healthy intercultural dialogue, overcoming ethnic intolerance, understanding the different and much more. This Code of Conduct, will serve in the future as a guideline on how to behave and act, and not only in the training gym or dojo, but also in real life and real life situations. The code will be built by the participants i.e. the ones that need the most, similar like the fathers of modern America did back in 1787 when they met and established the modern constitution of the United States of America, which today represents the highest rank in the US law system.

The project is intentionally developed to incorporate young participants, because they are the ones who are carrying the potential for healthy growth of the society or better changes in everyday life. Even the name of this project is making it obvious, “Weekends of Change – You are the Change”. Selected participants from each club are going to participate in different activities; they will be aged from 16 to 30 years old and will be coming with a different ethnic background. Each participant of the project will receive a diploma, a CD with a video material from the project activities and will receive one copy of the Code of conduct, after the project is finished.

As partners for this project there are: The US Embassy in Skopje as main supporter of this project, The Biznis Academy Smilevski as main collaborator in the planned seminars, Jeet Kune Do club “The Strongest – Aerodrom” from Skopje, Real Aikido and Judo club “Pelister” from Bitola and the Karate club “Drini” from Struga as main driving force of the project and last but not least, Alpha Omega Production as main cooperator in logistics and organization.

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