Zavod Aspira

The ASPIRA Institute is a place of passionate and curious people who develop their own selves and strive to bring the passion of learning to all educational fields, focusing on non-formal education. They explore, inspire and create a space where every passion has the opportunity to be born, to develop and to grow. ASPIRA Institute welcomes and encourages bravery in individuals and helps them develop it and nurture it. Because we want the power of an individual’s passion to change the world anywhere, anytime.

ASPIRA works on the national and international level. Creating different programs (workshops, training, educational classes) in different fields from the arts, youth work, computer programming, film and many more. What is important is that our programs are designed to ENCOURAGE, DEVELOP and NURTURE, passion towards all that an individual in learning. A passionate learner is a courageous one, free and will dare to be open minded and think critically. Our staff members come from different backgrounds such as computer programming, youth work, culture – film making, theater and visual arts. The core of all learning is having that inner drive, the inner passion with which you can reach and accomplish anything, anywhere and anytime. What is important is that our programs are designed to ENCOURAGE, DEVELOP and NURTURE, passion towards all that an individual in learning. A passionate
learner is a courageous one, free and will dare to be open minded and think critically. In Aspira institute 5 people work.

Noone is full time employed, but we are really committed to our work, because this is our passion. We have a strong belief that the things that we are doing and the ones that we will be, are very valuable for our society. We all work in the institute as very committed volunteers. We are a team of 5 and we take different responsibilities within the institute: Vesna Lenic Kreze is an artist and has over 6 years of experiences in youth work. She is a youth leader and a manager of local and international learning events and projects on the topic of art. Katarina Nučič has over 15 years of experience in youth work and she is responsible for administrative support to the institute as she is a youth leader and a lecturer. Rada Drnovšek has 13 years of experience as a project coordinator in youth projects. She is a manager for local and international projects and events on social and sustainability topics. Beside youth work in the institute there are also working Sašo Ledinek, who is a legal representative of the institute and has over 20 years of experience in computer programming and Benjamin Kreze, who has 20 years of experience in different visual arts fields, from painting, sculpting, analogue photography and his main working area film.in the past 10 years he has dedicated his time to film, specializing in documentary films. The core of all learning is having that inner drive, the inner passion with which you can reach and accomplish anything, anywhere and anytime. Aspira Institute was established in 2020 as a new organization, we have a strong vision and belief that the power of inner passion of each individual can change the world anywhere anytime. Our main working areas are aimed towards bringing quality to youth work projects by carrying out research based youth work, based on the needs that come from local, national and international levels. Our work on the national level consists of creating programs and workshops for young people and different groups who work with young people. We wish to empower them with creative tools and methodologies that evoke passion and enchant each individual to use their maximum potential. Our approach to learning is non-formal and passion-driven.

The main staff that will be involved in this project are Rada Drnovšek and Katarina Nučič, who have a strong background in youth work. Our other staff members that will be indirectly part of the project are Vesna Lenić Kreže, Saša Ledinek and Benjamin Kreže.

Saša is a computer programmer. Benjamin is an artist who works in many fields but mostly prioritizes in the film industry as a film (documentary film) director. Aspira itself was not yet involved in this kind of project, but people have many experiences. We were coordinators of different projects and activities on all levels: local campaigns for the local elections for young people, organising local confrontations of local politicians for major’s elections, leading groups of young people that were influencing programme of the public institution for youth work, organising structural dialogue projects on local level, participating in regional and national projects of structural dialog, coordinating preparation of local youth strategy and program, leading two international democratical projects under the Youth in Action programme. Katarina has over 15 years of experience in youth work. She was a mentor to local and european volunteers, coordinator of different actions in E+ program (K1, K2) as in previous programmes (Youth and Youth in action). She was strongly involved in the development of the youth programme in a local youth centre which was established in 2001. She was a coordinator and developer of international youth work, information and counseling, street work, political participation etc. In the period of 20016/2019, she was also a director of a local youth centre (local public body) and she gained a lot of experiences in the field of organization and setting the vision and strategy of the organization. Rada has 13 years of experience as a mentor, project coordinator in youth work.

She was involved in almost all actions in Youth in Action, ESC and Erasmus + projects. She was also project manager of a 2 years long project financed by European Social Fund. She was also involved in many different local, regional and national projects. Vesna has a 6 year experience working in youth work as a mentor, coordinator of volunteering projects and also carrier of project results for the Strategic partnership project “SAFE HAVEN”. She has worked as a EVS and a ESC project coordinator, coordinating volunteers and managing strategic volunteering projects. Vesna is also an intern trainer for the Slovenian national agency.