Students’ Forum for Latin America (SFLA) is a students’ non-governmental organization, founded in March 2006. It’s interesting to mention how the idea about the founding of the organization was born in the first place. The students of the Faculty of Geo-economics at the Megatrend University on the 3rd year of their studies have to choose a certain region in the world and study its economy, history, political development and international relations. We chose the region of Latin America and the Caribbean. Lead by the wish to broaden their knowledge, the students of the Faculty of Geo-economics founded the SFLA.

Sanja Tesic and Goran Manojlovic, senior students at the time, initiated the idea.
SFLA’s main goals are the studies and research of culture and traditions of Latin America, as well as informing the public about our activities.

Special emphasis is put on the studies of the Spanish language, which represents a very important characteristic of the region of Latin America, which enables the students of SFLA to become a part of an international cooperation. Various excursions across Serbia and Latino parties represent the inevitable part of our activities. All of this makes SFLA a unique organization in the Balkans.

Who are our members? Our members are mostly students of the Faculty of Geo-economics, from the sector for the research of the Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as students of the Iberian Studies of the Faculty of Philology. However, our members are also graduates and postgraduates, as well as professors of the mentioned faculties, which makes SFLA an even more specific organization.

Of course, all the other students who are interested in the subject of our research can become a part of our organization, so our members are also students of Architecture, Political science, Pharmacy, etc.

Up to this day we organized a lot of cultural and other manifestations, such as:

• Poetry and Wine”: we organized recitals of the most famous poems of Latin- American poets: Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral and others.
• Together with Slovenian students, members of SFLA took participation in international students’ workshop in Zajecar in April 2006, when they had an opportunity to present their science work.
• During the summer of 2005 some of our members were in Cuba. They shared their experiences through a presentation called “Story about Cuba”. Cuban cocktails and merengue and salsa performance of our members followed this manifestation.
• Through the lecture about Aztecs we informed the public about this ancient civilization.
• We also took participation in Youth Fair of non-governmental organizations in September 2006.
• One of our popular manifestations is “Spanish corner”- evening meetings where we all practice speaking Spanish and at the same time learn it in a very interesting way, with conversation, music and poetry.
• We were one of the organizers of “CEISAL”, European Council for public research of Latin America, which took place in September 2006.
• Together with the embassy of Cuba we organized “Cuba today”-presentation of political and economical situation in Cuba.
• We also organized several Latino parties.

It is very important to mention that SFLA has an excellent cooperation with Latin American diplomatic core in Belgrade.

In our work we had a great support of Megatrend University in all our activities. They provided us with places for our meetings, with technical equipment and we use this opportunity to thank them.

Participating in SFLA’s activities is voluntary but it is very useful, because this way people learn about team work. They also learn about organization and leadership capability, gain valuable experience, they meet people with similar interests…

With the increasing number of our members the number of realized ideas increase too: projections of Spanish and Latin American films, publishing of the magazine about Latin America and Spanish language, poetry evening dedicated to José Martí, presentation of Brazil with the great support of the Brazilian embassy… In December some of our members will go to Warszawa to the 3rd Students’ meeting for Latin American studies….

If the subject of our research interests you, we invite you to become a part of the SFLA team. You can find the application form on our web site www.sfla.geosocial.net.

And the most important thing of all, we are not just colleagues; we are friends first J
We await you!