Friends dedicated to enrich life of youth in our community

Who are we?

The youth association Ponat has been founded by a group of 8 friends who have decided to dedicate their time and efforts towards creating a better environment for young people in the area of Zupa dubrovacka.

Our small community has been fully focused on tourism which led to an excess of offers for tourists and insufficient or close to non-existent offers of entertainment for locals. During the summer the majority of events are oriented toward foreigners and during the rainy winters the offer is dull since the entrepreneurs give their full efforts on preparing the new summer season.

We have decided to give it a try in improving the balance and giving something to the community.

What have we done so far?

We have started with no resources, materials equipment etc. so we organized a simple pub quiz in the local bar. It would be an understatement to say it went really well since the event was filled within a couple of hours after announcing it. The only feedback we received was “When are you doing this again?!”. Long story short, we organized several more quizzes where we managed to get recognized in the local community. From the donations received on those events we bought some simple equipment necessary for all further operation. We had our first small PA equipment!

On the wave of positivity and enthusiasm we managed to get financial support from the local tourist board and municipal office. We still have their support since the association has been in constant forward motion.

Not to brag but we are proud to have organized the following events since 2019:

• 15 x Pub quizzes
• 2 x amateur water polo tournaments
• 2 x amateur football tournaments
• 3 x movie nights
• 1 x FIFA tournament
• 1 x Tennis tournament
• The biggest event we organized in July 2020 was a beach party which gathered roughly 2000 people in the small bay of Srebreno. We arranged several beach games where more than 200 people participated, DJ’s, 3 local bars who have been serving drinks for the whole day, and so on…

What do we want to do?

One of the biggest obstacles is the question where we are headed now. We have created a recognizable association known for its enthusiasm, originality and effort. As the association is constantly growing in number and size of events, our first priority is including several new young people who have recognized our work and who have asked to join in order to assist us in becoming even better.

We are constantly thinking of new ideas and events we could deliver. A part of our vision is to engage in additional humanitarian and cultural activities. In the local community we now have a respectable number of followers who would be willing to volunteer if asked. We want to use their help to work on projects the whole community would benefit from.

In the long run, we hope that this little association will become one of the pillars in volunteering, positivity and support of the local community. As pretentious as this may sound, but we believe it is possible!

What do we need?

We have created this association from scratch and through hard work and self-offering we managed to build something small, yet powerful. What we always desire is endorsement and understanding from people who can support us. We have invested a lot of time and effort into our community, but we are also limited by the financial support we receive. We are thankful for the support from our municipal office and tourist board, but we are also aware we could do much more if given the opportunity. The majority of our budget so far has been through individual donations to our association by local people. Without them it would not be possible for us to operate, therefore we would kindly ask for a small donation towards our association which will directly be used to buy a laptop and additional equipment for our PA system.