Ivona Jadrić.
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Ivona was born in 1980 in Zadar. From zero to two years of age, she mostly stayed in Tisno with her grandparents, and the rest of her childhood and youth she lived in Biograd n/m – except for the war years of the 90s when, like many others, her parents took her away from the war events back to Tisno, on Murter.
She attended elementary school in Biograd, general high school in Zadar, and in Zagreb she graduated in business economics – majoring in marketing in 2004 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Zagreb. After her studies, actually by chance, she ended up in Ireland (Dublin) and later England (London) improving her English, gathering work experience and studying the “faculty” of life and work abroad.
Nevertheless, in the summer of 2008, Ivona returns to the Republic of Croatia, again to Murter, where in December she starts working in Argonauta as the Head of the Educational Center for the Sustainable Development of Islands and Coasts. For her, it was the challenge of returning to her homeland, to a small environment, to a very unusual work environment – civil society organizations – associations for the protection of nature and the environment and the promotion of sustainable development.
The job at Argonauta turned out to be a mutual “perfect match” – for Ivona and for the Association. In 2010, she was promoted to the position of Executive Director of the association, and since the adoption of the new Statute in 2013, which separates the functions of the President and the Executive Director, she also assumes a large part of the responsibility for the work of the organization.
“I am happy that I do a job that is creative and allows me to turn my own ideas and those of Argonauta’s team from nature protection, environment and sustainable development into projects and thus give them life – we achieve them! Sometimes it is not easy to keep the enthusiasm of working in the non-profit sector to contribute to social goals – donors become more and more demanding and project administration sometimes takes a significant part of the work energy. But the enthusiasm returns when you see that the effort and work put in gives results, that the work of the Association is approached new young people who see their future on this island!”
