We wanted to support the teachers in Serbia and the region by providing them information and knowledge on the identification, characteristics, needs of gifted students and to propose them ways of working with these students at all levels of education. We also wanted to raise awareness of the teaching staff on twice exceptional students. Another aim is to support also the parents of gifted children, who also lack information and knowledge on the subject.
One of the main goals of Mensa as an organization is to research intelligence and care for gifted individuals in society. Wanting to contribute to improving the position of the gifted in the education system of Serbia, Mensa Serbia started organizing public forums and international conferences on the topic of identification and support of the gifted in 2017. Through those events, we discovered that in Serbia and the region, educators do not receive any knowledge about identifying and supporting gifted students through their university studies. On the other hand, they have a need for such knowledge because in their work they encounter students who show exceptional abilities in some areas. This led us to turn to Mensa Sweden, which has its own Gifted Children Program (GCP), through which they train teachers in Sweden and develop their skills to identify and fulfill the needs of the gifted students. We started this project with the aim of acquiring knowledge on this topic and transferring it to educators in Serbia, while adapting it to the local context.