Mali Bilingvali

(Little Bilinguals)

Mali Bilingvali is an educational camp in Serbian language for children who are growing up abroad. Our mission is to help parents and grandparents maintain and grow their children’s heritage language.

The camp is aimed at children aged three to eight. It takes place in Belgrade, during main holiday periods in the West: summer, Christmas and Easter. The length of the programme each time is between seven and ten days.

Why Mali Bilingvali?

We believe that heritage language maintenance in the diaspora is essential as it is an integral part of our identity. It strengthens connections to the family, culture and traditions of the country where the language is spoken.

Our children growing up abroad are primarily surrounded by the languages of the communities they live in: at the nursery and school, in the playground and other public spaces. Attending school in the community language is one of the main reasons that language becomes the dominant one, as learning and socialization happens with this language.

Knowing how challenging it is to maintain a heritage language in the diaspora and having recognised that parents need support in doing so, we created our camp. Mali Bilingvali is a place where children have opportunity to actively use Serbian while putting other skills to work: acting, creative expression, reading/writing and competition.

Our way of working

At Mali Bilingvali, we provide a creative and fun classroom experience in Serbian, by focusing on topics that are familiar to the children. Children spend time with peers and learn that growing up in more than one country and with at least two languages is not unique to them, but shared with many others. This atmosphere contributes not only to the development of their language skills but also to their emotional attachment to the language.

The relatively small size of our groups enables us to take an individual approach to the needs of our pupils. We ensure multiple activity options are available for children of different ages and language ability.

Moments from our camp

Mali Bilingvali to date

Pupils

Countries

Since July 2025, we hosted 36 pupils from 14 different countries in our camp. Some of them were with us only once, while others return season after season, thus growing up together with us.

Team

Our camp is founded and run by Lena and Janja Poleksić.

Lena Poleksić

Janja Poleksić

Testimonials

Here is what some of our parents said about our camp:

Beautiful initiative, well thought through programme and a wonderful opportunity for children to meet and spend time with their peers, play games and learn in their language.

Marija Eva’s mum

The camp is led by professional and passionate teachers who enjoy what they do – fostering language in children. At the same time, they are warm and approachable. We trusted them and felt that [our son] is in good hands.

Aleks Aki’s mum

The indicator of success is that Nina started using full sentences in Serbian, although still clumsily. The most interesting fact is that she is now willing to use Serbian, even when she is addressing her dad.

Ana Nina’s mum

Big plus for daily reports and photos we received so that we are in the loop on new things they have learnt. That way we can continue what you started at home. If only the practice was the same in the regular, every day nursery!

Jovana Antonio’s mum

To be specific, the most valuable thing for me was that my child returned from the camp with new information and discoveries that us parents sometimes fail to mention with our children, or we simply oversee them in the sea of daily tasks and to do lists.

Vanja Aleksa’s mum

After attending your camp, a big change happened. Roberta insists on speaking not only Serbian, but Italian too. She seems proud and we are very happy to see that. It’s obvious that everything you talked about had an influence, not only on practicing and speaking the language, but also on the realization that it is beneficial to speak and maintain more than one language.

Jelena Roberta’s mum

Contact

If you have any questions or are interested in future camp dates, then

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