Last week in Bad Homburg, Germany, the winners of the 17th Vecernjak’s selection of the most popular Croats in the diaspora were announced in the categories of sport, music, acting and showbiz for the 2023 Vecernjakova Domovnica Award. This year’s “Vecernji list” newspaper awards ceremony was also held under the sponsorship of the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs and the Croatian Heritage Foundation.
Srecko Mavrek, TCN correspondent from New York and one of the hosts of Croatian Radio New York “Voice of Free Croatia”, also received special recognition.
Srecko Mavrek was born in Varaždin in 1969, and his origin is from Ivanec. He studied in Zagreb, Pecs, Graz and New York, and was one of the prominent student leaders at the University of Zagreb, where he was elected to the presidency of the Student Union and served as a representative for the social-humanistic-theological field in the university senate.
Before leaving for the USA, he worked as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Udine in Italy, the Karl-Franz University of Graz in Austria, the University of Augsburg in Germany and the University of Pécs in Hungary. He currently works as a swimming and physical education teacher for the New York City Department of Education.
He is also an adjunct lecturer at Hostos Community College, the City University of New York. As an internationally recognised expert in education, he was the official representative of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education at the United Nations Department for Global Communications.
He received several prestigious professional awards and recognitions, such as the 2016 President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition Community Leadership Award. Mavrek sings tenor in the well-known New York klapa Astoria, which became famous by performing the American national anthem at the Croatian Heritage Night in Madison Square Garden on January 11, 2019. In Science of Music, he composes folk and world music and plays various instruments. He is also a correspondent for the Croatian Information Agency (HIA).
Srecko Mavrek is a highly respected Croatian lobbyist and promoter of Croatian national heritage and culture in America and around the world. For this reason, last Sunday he received one more recognition from the American-Croatian Congress at a ceremony held at the famous Dubrovnik restaurant in New Rochelle, New York, owned by Zeljko Tomic from the island of Lopud.
The ceremony was preceded by the premiere of the HRT documentary “Ana Mljecka”, which promotes Croatia, the island of Mljet and the Mljet National Park around the world, and is dedicated to the traditional way of life on the Adriatic and the Croatian islands, showing the cultural heritage of the island through the biographical story of Ana Strazicic Rodriguez, a well-known Croatian expatriate who has been living and working in America for decades.
During his speech at the award ceremony, Srecko Mavrek thanked the entire American-Croatian Congress, which recognised his contribution to the Croatian community in New York, and he also said that it was a really great honor for him personally to be among other award winners such as Jere Kursar, Zvonko Crnogorac and all others who for many years have been contributing to the promotion and reputation of Croatia and the Croatian community in New York and New Jersey with their voluntary and humanitarian work.
As a respected member and journalist of the American-Croatian Congress, he also announced that after this recognition, he will become even more involved in a series of projects at the local community level and globally.
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