Ernest Matskyavichyus, Director of the Media Institute, won the Honorary Prize

On March 28, "Sirius" hosted the launch of the fourth season of the largest project for children and teenagers—the all-Russian contest "Bolshaya Peremena". Ernest Matskyavichyus, Director of the Media Institute, was awarded the First Prize in the category "For Contribution to the Development of the Movement of the Firsts".

© "Bolshaya Peremena" press service

Ernest Matskyavichyus, a journalist and presenter of the show "Vesti v 20:00" on "Rossiya 1" TV channel, is one of the "Bolshaya Peremena" chief mentors. His lecture, "Simple Ways to Be Persuasive" opened the two-day marathon dedicated to the start of the competition.

"Bolshaya Peremena" is the flagship project of the Russian Movement of Children and Youth "Movement of the Firsts". The start of the new season brought together the winners of the three previous competitions, teachers-mentors, artists, and media representatives, Olympic champions, university rectors, heads of children's public and educational projects, and federal ministries and departments. More than 2,000 schoolchildren and students, as well as 1,000 teachers whose pupils were the winners of the "Bolshaya Peremena" shared their success stories, talked about their projects, and recalled the most memorable moments of the competition. On the first day, participants met with Maria Zakharova, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Sergei Novikov, Head of the Presidential Administration for Public Projects; Sergei Kravtsov, Minister of Education; Natalia Mandrova, General Director of the "Bolshaya Peremena"; and Boris Mashkovtsev, Director of the "Soyuzmultfilm" studio.

Ernest Matskyavichyus, Director of the Media Institute, also took part in the motivational discussion "Speak Out: Modern Media", which was held as part of the "Marathon of the Firsts". He also gave an interview to young journalists, in which he talked about the "Journalism and Media" "Sirius" educational programme that had just ended, about the participants of the previous seasons of "Bolshaya Peremena" who had chosen media as their future profession, about their mentors, professionalism, and ambitions, and right for inspiration and how to strive for your dreams and win.

Ernest Matskyavichyus, Director of the Media Institute

 

"Sirius" is more than an educational centre today. It is a federal territory, where all conditions have been created for children with talent and motivation to find themselves, meet like-minded people, feed off each other's energy, and move on towards their dreams. This season of "Bolshaya Peremena" has many new faces for me. There are guys coming in who have a tremendous amount of desire. They are the most talented, the most daring, and the most stubborn in the best sense of those words. They have already decided roughly what they want in life or are actively involved in it. We want to give them the opportunity to find themselves, to show them how to achieve victory and what to do if they fail the first time, we want to teach them how to get up when they have fallen. To explain that defeat at this stage in life is even more important than winning. And these are not empty words. If you know how to lose, sooner or later you will take several times more than you initially planned."

Author: Renata Burchik 

Translation: Polina Semenova, a first-year student of Master's programme "Contemporary Journalism"