Today in the Museum of Ethnography Jat Airways was awarded with the Gramata Prize for its contribution to found the first Serbian college "Saint Sava" in Australia which is being built in Sydney. At the same time it is the first Serbian college in the Diaspora being built by the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). The Gramata Prize is a charter which is awarded by our church’s at the fifth continent. Mr. Nebojša Starčević, Jat Airways’ acting Director General, received the prize from Australia-and-New-Zealand-appointed Bishop Milutin. The award ceremony was attended by our church’s dignitaries, John Oliver - Australian ambassador in Belgrade, representatives from the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Diaspora and other culture and public figures from Belgrade. The organizer of the manifestation was "Saint Sava" College from Sydney and its director, Archpriest Stavrofor Rade Radan, the SOC from Australia and the Museum of Ethnography in Belgrade.

The Gramata Prize of the first Serbian College in Sydney

Jat has been involved in the constriction works of the first Serbian college in the country already from the project idea. Brilliant cooperation with the college and the SOC, which provides financial support, was realized with Jat primarily as with the Serbian flag air carrier and also as the only Serbian company in the country. Therefore Bishop Milutin expressed "gratitude towards Jat and its representative in Sydney, Mr. Bogdan Popović, as great benefactor". The cooperation contributed to Jat Airways’ achievement of excellent traffic results in this market, i.e. to extraordinary connections via Dubai through which it ensures the transportation of passengers four times a week.

His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle consecrated the foundations of the "Saint Sava" College while Prince Aleksandar laid a cornerstone. President of Serbia Mr. Boris Tadić shall soon pay a visit to the construction works of this education edifice. The promotion of the college is scheduled to occur in November while the official opening is to be in 2008. Serbs in Australia expect it with enormous impatience and emotions which is witnessed by the words of Bishop Milutin: "The college is the new Serbian sun in the sky above Australia or yet another star which makes the Australian cross."

The college curriculum will be studied by 1,200 children of our emigrant settlers. Their excursions to the country of their origin, as well as more and more intensive visits across Serbia paid by elder generations of our emigrants, are only a part of the activity through which the first Serbian college from Australia intends to establish permanent and more intensive links between the Diaspora from this remote country and their fatherland.

Australian Ambassador in Belgrade - John Olive, Jat’s Acting Director General Nebojša Starčević, Australia and New Zealand Bishop Milutin, Jat’s Director of Commercial Operations Milutin Popović, Jat’s representative in Sydney Bogdan Popović		Australia and New Zealand Bishop Milutin, Jat’s Acting Director General Nebojša Starčević