Topic: Donation Campaign For 15-Year-Old Swimmer Lana Pudar (Read 462 times)

I don't think there is a need to make such updates because no one can donate anyways. I haven't posted any addresses and the whole point of this thread was to see if donations made any sense at all. It was a discussion from which I wanted to draw some conclusions on how to proceed and whether or not to do it. But after dkbit98 suggested that it would be smarter for Lana to introduce herself here and collect the donations in her own name without a 3rd party being involved, I stopped pursuing the idea of me doing it, but I wanted to find some way of approaching her. 

I like the idea initially,,, and I am always supporting such campaigns but after reading the posts I do have some concerns. The first, and I hope I am wrong, is that Lana and her team seem to know about crypto and seem to already be doing some things. We need to have the full picture first before anyone supports anything. Second is more important to me, that she does not even know about it,,, and because I have been bitten before I feel a lot more assurances need to be made correct? I would actually prefer the team knows about it and supports it. And we find a way to manage the spending of the funds collected.

Pmalek, feel bad for you. Maybe should update the thread to say they cannot be contacted and people here should not donate. Good intentions but sad no response. Better luck next time hah

Now that you mentioned her father, the last thing I could try is get in touch with him. From what I can see, his Facebook page does accept messages in contrast to Lana's. But I am so tired of seeing a brick wall after each of my failed contact attempt.  
We will see...

They had some issues with PayPal and because of that, they stopped this campaign. https://gogetfunding.com/blog-single-update/?blogpre=7108565&single=62575

Just did a quick web search with term Lana Pudar Donation and your topic was on top above that NFT crowdfunding page and above her wiki page, so anyone searching to help with donations including Lana will find this place and write if she needs help.
Maybe she prefers paper convertible marks and she doesn't care about inflation  



btw I found one more failed gogetfunding campaign for collecting money that was approved by her father Velibor:
https://gogetfunding.com/support-lana-pudar/

I have decided to stop pursuing this idea. All attempts to get in touch with Lana or her team have failed.

- She can't be contacted over her official Facebook page.
- She doesn't accept messages over Twitter.
- There is no contact method on her official website.
- The Bosnian Swimming Federation doesn't have a website or social media profile you can reach out to.
- I got no response from the TV station where she made a guest appearance.
- I contacted the swimming club where she trains over Facebook because that's the only method of getting in touch with them. They read the message, but there was no reply to it.

Fcuk it. I am out of here.
I will leave the thread open just in case, but I have no intentions of taking part in any further activities. 

My guess is that she doesn't want just about anyone to contact her and send her messages. Even though she has a Facebook account, it doesn't accept private messages. From what I can see, her Twitter account is configured in the same way. You can't message here over it. An email address would be good, but nothing is posted on her site or social media. The club she swims for would know how to proceed. It's called Orka or Moster Orka, sth like that. I will check it out.

I know nationality isn't important, I only brought it up to mention who usually has a Croatian passport or dual citizenship since it was suggested that she could maybe swim for Croatia. Eduardo's case was different. He wanted to play for Croatia and could do it because he never played for a different senior national team. With Lana and her family, that's obviously not the case according to the statements made by her father. I am not familiar with the procedure for swimmers and whether or not such a change would now be possible when she has already represented the national team of Bosnia. 

Pmalek how it's possible that you still didn't manage to get in contact with here?
Best way to contact her and ask her about accepting Bitcoin donations directly would be to find her mobile phone number or email address... I don't think that is so hard to find.
I saw that few days ago Lana Pudar was a guess on Dubrovačka televizija TimeOut, so she is obviously traveling all around the region speaking the same language we can all understand, so nationality is not so important.
Some people may remember Eduardo da Silva, Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro who played for Croatia national team, so why would Lana case be any different.

her father seems to have made very clear statements about their status of citizenship. They are from Bosnia and that is the only option although it is obvious that they received offers to act on behalf of another state. link
He also has clear attitudes towards politicians in Bosnia, does not allow them to appropriate any of Lana's successes until they build a swimming pool in Mostar source

She might have been approached by Croatia but since she is competing under the Bosnian flag and won medals for Bosnia, I am not sure that's still an option. She surely would have a better environment elsewhere, that's for sure. Usually Croats living in Bosnia have dual citizenships. I think Lana is a child from a mixed marriage between a Bosnian woman and a Serbian father. During the little research I did before writing this thread, I found out that her father (of Serbian origin based on his name), used to be a footballer who played mostly in the Serbian league and is now a goalkeeper coach in Saudi Arabia. That might complicate things in acquiring a Croatian citizenship.

No, only via Instagram, I could try it over Twitter as well to see if that makes any difference.

Additionally, it seems like that NFT collection was made by https://blocsport.one/ so I wouldn't be surprised if they are taking the cut from the profit. But at least we can be sure that she gave them rights to do that for her, as seen in this YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHGzmMdeeYo

By the way, have you tried contacting her via Twitter? Or maybe even contacting Blocsport and asking them to tell  her to add Bitcoin address to her Instagram/Twitter profiles, which would imho would be the most elegant solution to this, sending her Bitcoin directly (not that I wouldn't trust you with the money).


Hah yeah, same thought crossed my mind. I wouldn't be surprised if our swimming federation hasn't contacted her already, offering her much better conditions, especially since we used to have decent swimming team while that's not the case at the moment (AFAIK).

I haven't seen this topic before so I'm just commenting now. Since I know the situation in BiH very well, I wonder if Lana has Croatian citizenship in addition to Bosnian, since she is from Mostar (Herzegovina)? You know very well that a lot of athletes from BiH perform under the Croatian flag - Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig were born there, as well as Vedran Corluka and Dejan Lovren and many others.

I appreciate people who remain faithful to their country, but in this particular case, I would not blame Lana if she tries in Croatia or some other country that would surely provide her with excellent living and coaching conditions.

In case of any fundraising for Lana, everything should be done professionally so that the Philippine scenario does not happen again.

OK, good. That solves the mystery in whose honor the coin was created.

I really don't want to be the one suggesting, advertising, or recommending anyone's NFT tokens when I have a rather negative view on the entire NFT space. I think that only a few NFT use cases could have a future, the rest will be forgotten in a few years. If she does decide to come here one day, it's her decision on what to do and how to collect the donations.

I agree with what you are saying, but that's all I am prepared to do. The message I sent her contained a link to this thread and the Croatian local board. She can check it for herself in case it went through.   

I understand that you sent message from brand new account because of privacy, but it may be reason why you didn't got response. Message related with money from new, empty account - it looks a bit suspicious. If I would receive something similar, I would be sceptical about it. Offcourse, it's possible that she didn't even saw message.

Probably only coincidences in these two cases. The Twitter algorithm suggested it to me.

OP since they ^{Lana Pudar and her team behind} are familiar with the crypto world, maybe it would be better to turn this campaign to be something between a donation and a selling Lana Pudar NFT tokens. In that way, donors would get something in return, who knows it is very likely that Lana will make a great success and her NFT's will gain added value.
also, it would make things easier for you as a mediator, the money would go directly to her. No need for escrow, multi-sig wallet etc... there is no room for any doubt towards you.
it would still be good to contact them somehow and perhaps suggest that they complement the portfolio with smaller (cheaper) NFT's for "donors" with the lowest budget.

That post if from May 7th 2021, while Lana Pudar birthday is on January 19th (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana_Pudar) so I don't think that this Lanacoin has anything to do with the person we are talking about in this thread. After all, Lana is a pretty common name on the Balkans.



This is from the creator of LanaCoin ANN thread, and creator of that coin. Seems like he made it for his daughter and yeah, based on his forum activity, he is Slovenian. So another clue that this coin has nothing to do with Lana Pudar.

I would agree with you if the token was named RonaldoCoin or FedererCoin, but LanaCoin. And the coin has been around for several years. I doubt people in her country who didn't know her personally ever heard of her at that time. 

It's either that or she never received or read the Instagram message. I mentioned that it was sent from a brand-new account with no real name or profile behind it. Considering that Instagram banned the account, who knows how the message was handled. I will get in touch with someone from the Swimming Federation soon. If that doesn't work, I am not planning any additional steps.

I hate to gatecrash the party but you should know by now that scammers will name a token after anything these days, right?

I think it would be better if you teamed up with some locals to launch some fundraiser in Bosnia for swimmers, athletes, etc and this will make it more likely your voice is heard over there. Not only that but you'd also be supporting several other athletes who would perhaps welcome this help (all signs are pointing her not being interested in your campaign).

Interesting find examplens. I have to admit that this is the first time I am seeing this LanaCoin.

They mention on their official website that they are a "personalized cryptocurrency".
Source: https://lanacoin.com/

But what is interesting, they don't mention an official connection to Lana Pudar. They say that the coin was created as a birthday present, but not to who. There is also no mention of the swimmer on the official site or on the posts on Twitter/Instagram, Facebook. Lana's website also has no links to the coin and I couldn't find any mention of it on her social media profile. Her Twitter has several posts mentioning Blocsport.one but not LanaCoin. It's almost as if they are trying to hide the connection.

I also performed a quick search on Ninjastic Space to see if the name 'Lana Pudar' was ever mentioned on Bitcointalk (because LanaCoin has an ANN here) and the results only show the mentions in this thread and nothing else. 

Just checked Twitter account from Lana's official website https://twitter.com/LanaPudar and I find they were active there on 31. Dec. 2021 perhaps this can be interpreted as not so long ago. Maybe you can try to contact them through TW.

I am not sure why, but when I open her account, TW suggest checking "similar" acc https://twitter.com/LanaCoin it's about Lanacoin (#Lana). according to the data I managed to find, Lana coin (first personalised coin) was launched in Slovenia.
Interesting pinned post on their FB page https://www.facebook.com/LanaCoins/

admin congrats 15th birthday to Lana (coin is also launched on her birthday). Since they have already launched a personalized NFT, obviously her parents (or who already cares for her) have some knowledge of cryptocurrencies, is it possible that they had already launched their coin earlier? (I checked a few posts on FB and yes, devs of this Lana coin are from Balkan for sure)

edit: ANN on bttalk

OP, this is definitely a great initiative on your part. I apologize if what I have written is complete offtopic here and there is actually no connection. in that case, I will delete the post.

First @Pmalek i want to really appreciate you for helping out a life.
if the donation starts i will be willing to support with the little i have to make sure she have a better life and achieved here career as a swimmer.

Now the common problems with politician is that " They are anxious of their political career" allowing greed to savage and ravage over them in other to attain their desire for to get power leaving the young talented youth behind, mostly those from the middle and medium countries.

i will keep track this thread to know how about the donations, i so much believe all things is cool with you.

After some time, I decided to give this another try. Instagram (scumbags), deleted my profile. Probably because it was a fake one, not associated with a real name. I am no longer able to see if I ever received a reply there or if the message was even sent. No idea how this privacy-evading network works when it comes to brand-new accounts.

I decided to email the TV network where Lana was a guest in. If/when they reply, I will post what they said. You can see the content and a screenshot of my email below. That makes it easy for anyone to translate the email if they wanted to. If this doesn't work out, the last thing I could try is contact the Bosnian Swimming Federation and ask them. If that fails as well, I will just abandon the idea altogether.

No donations yet as I haven't collected anything. I am just pondering on the idea to do that. 5-6 days have passed since I sent that message via Instagram and there has not been a response yet. I will soon try and get in touch with the TV station and the people from the show where I heard about this case. They might be willing to provide a way to contact someone from her team.

It's her call and the decision of her coaches and parents what the money will be used for. Travel, preparation, gear, accommodation, nutrition...

@Pmalek can you clarify what exactly the donations are going to be used for?

Yeah, probably Blocsport.one in a partnership with nftdeals.io. If you go to https://nftdeals.io/ and check the Athletes section, you can find many similar collections for other world athletes. 

I am not sure how Instagram classifies messages and is there such a thing as spam messages if they are received from someone outside your friends circle. The other option and way of contact would be to go through the TV station and TV show she was a guest on (owned by the same person) and try to establish contact that way.

It's funny that her own website don't have translation in local languages but only in English, that makes me think how someone else (maybe Blocsport.one) made this website for here to advertise their own (BLS) token(s).
This is not a bad way to collect funds per se, but I don't understand keeping jpeg images on centralized networks like binance chain (or something like polygon) that is proved to revert transactions.
Those NFTs have her image and signature so that means she approved them and she knows at least something about crypto.
Let's wait and see if she replies to you

Website registered only few months ago, so it's definitely something new:

First attempts to reach out to Lana and her team were made yesterday.
She can't be contacted over her official Facebook page > https://www.facebook.com/lanapudarofficial.
So I sent her a message over Instagram from a brand-new Pmalek account.
https://www.instagram.com/lanapudar/

To be completely transparent, I am posting screenshots of that message + the message itself so that anyone who wants to can translate it with Google Translate or some other service and understand it.

---

I found something interesting after I sent out this message. I came across Lana's official website > https://lanapudar.com/.
Looks like she is somewhat familiar with crypto. At least with NFTs. She has a collection on sale that can be reached through her website (https://nftdeals.io/lana-pudar/?id=5). Let's see if there will be a response.

I agree with suggestion to contact her before doing something. As I understand, this story already got quite a lot attention in Bosnia. So, if she will like idea about accepting Bitcoin donations, this story can spread more global than just Bitcointalk, especially if foreign media will catch it. And yeah, after recent story with Bitcointalk charity people may look sceptical into it, so, all precautions must be taken to avoid it.
BTW, she is just 15 years old, but her results is very solid. She have big potential. And sad to read about corrupted politics in Bosnia. They're same everywhere :/.

Don't get to optimistic about that, but I am sure that it is totally possible for people involved in sports to advertise Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency related companies.
Some of them even receive paychecks partially in Bitcoin, and I saw that Formula One have signed partnership with Crypto.com.
Just remember to say Lana to switch of her TV and don't listen anything that local government officials are saying about Bitcoin

I just had a quick look at that incident. Quite a mess indeed.

That's not bad either. I will try to get in touch with her and her people and see if that is something she would be interested in doing.

Maybe she will organize a signature campaign.

In that article that you linked to, she is thanking the general public for supporting and her and making her feel welcome when she returned home. It's got nothing to do with institutional support really. But you are right that she is getting more attention and donations from local Bosnian businesses. And that's a positive thing.

In the YouTube video above, she compared the conditions in the Bosnian camp with those from here biggest rivals. I assume she meant China and the USA who finished in 1st and 2nd spot. She said that she doesn't even have a physiotherapist or a masseur, but her rivals came to Abu Dhabi with 2 of those. Her coach massages her if needed and provides basic care. There just isn't enough funding to bring additional people.

I often see swimming athletes around the world including in my country who participate in various swimming competitions in the world, More or less I know the achievements and medals achieved by Lana, yes indeed she is the youngest swimmer from Mostar today.

Talk about the donation campaign for Lana Pudar, I don't think so now, the effect is not good especially for the community in this forum, besides I also saw the press conference held by: Lana Pudar: Hvala na prekrasnom dočeku i podršci o kakvoj sanja svaki sportista, In my opinion, with the news made by Lana and the support from various parties from the Bosnian government and other elements, this will have a positive effect on Lana and the swimming team in Bosnia, I'm sure Lana and the team will get more funds than expected, I think for sure the Bosnian government can be proud of Lana, who is the best athlete in the world today, whatever will be done by the government of Bosnia for the next competition, including funds for the team, can be more advanced in the future.

I'm sure a positive response will flood Lana Pudar and the swim team after this press conference, including donations.

my thoughts on donating to Lana Pudar.

After that Charity debacle with canibalism13, some people would say...oh no, one more donation trying to get money for something, but I believe this story and conditions in Bosnia to be true.
What I would like is that you Pmalek or someone else try to contact Lana and teach her how to create Bitcoin wallet, so that she can receive donations directly, without third party (You or anyone else)
Taking this donations directly you would solve most problems and questions from community, and you would make bitcoin more popular In Bosnian federation.
She can even join this forum and make video interview for our new Youtube channel BitcoinTalk Show, if she is interested for that.
Imagine Lana with shirts and clothes advertising Bitcoin and Bitcointalk forum of her own free will
Just my two sats.

Thanks, but not yet. Let me get a few more opinions to see whether or not this will work out and if anyone is even interested.
Since Lana appeared on that local show a few days ago, she has already received at least €7-10k from various people and organizations. So people have started paying attention to her success.

I have considered doing that with an escrow if needed. It's a good idea.

I don't want to be the one who cashes out those coins and connects my name to them. I would rather send the coins to her and her family and suggest ways in which they can cash them out. There is a good local P2P crypto forum in her country with free escrow support. That could be an option.
All communication would, of course, be collected and shown publicly.

Due to the situations discussed here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/discussion-about-escrow-service-offered-by-forum-users-5378558
I would encourage you to do a 2 of 3 or 3 of 5 multisig wallet with other people on the forum at least for the BTC portion of it. (No idea how ETH wallets work)

I would also say if possible¹ it would be better if you collected the money in Crypto, gave it to them in fiat out of your own pocket and then collected the crypto.
This way you could say look, I collected X then gave her X and then cashed out the crypto for X to pay myself back. This way there could never be any way for people to say you took the money.²

And if you do it, please document everything for proof and records the reputation you save could be yours.....

-Dave
¹ Not knowing your financial situation or how much may be collected this may or may not be an option.
² Yes you could always generate fake receipts, and a host of other things but it's not a big concern.

I have no problem believing you with the fund and I believe that you are worthy of that. As I said before, I really don't want to get myself engaged in such random donation but I can't ignore once I see such a thread  I will keep tracking of this thread and surely donate whatever I can afford to donate. Update the BTC address.

Lana Pudar is a 15-year-old talented young swimmer who was born and still lives in the Bosnian city of Mostar. According to her Wikipedia page, she specializes in butterfly events.



What is so special about this young girl?


First of all, she had the (miss)fortune of being born in Bosnia and Herzegovina – one of the poorest countries in Europe. If she were born in most other countries, she would have a scholarship, sponsors competing against each other for her signature, and full support from her government.

Lana doesn’t have that. Instead, she has a regional Prime Minister. A politician who decided to not award the talented swimmer with a symbolic cash prize because she had already received them on two occasions in the past. But that’s Bosnia for you - work and effort don’t get rewarded. Instead, that money is better spent on political campaigns and election fraud.

On December 24th, Lana and the president of the Bosnian Swimming Federation appeared on a local TV show called Centralni Dnevnik. They talked about her recent achievements and future plans.

The city Lana lives in doesn’t have an Olympic swimming pool! So to train and prepare for competitions, the girl has to travel to Sarajevo and Banja Luka. Sarajevo is a 2-hour car ride away, and to reach Banja Luka, Lana travels over 4 hours. There are some plans to build proper training facilities in her home town, but knowing the speed at which this region moves, that won’t happen for a long time. 

During her appearance on the above-mentioned local show, the TV host asked (at 12:40 in the video) how much money the girl needs to stay competitive at the highest levels. The President of the Swimming Federation said that they spent over €40.000 in the current year. €40.000 - €50.000 minimum is what she needs to remain competitive. A part of those expenses was covered by various institutions.

This is Lana’s first year on a pro-level. As a reminder, we are talking about a 15-year-old girl successfully competing against the best professional swimmers in the world.


Lana Pudar’s achievements 

-   Lana finished 3rd and won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Swimming Championships held in UAE, Abu Dhabi, on 17 December 2021. Here is a video of that race.
-   In the Swimming World Cup held in Kazan, Russia, she won another bronze medal on 30 October 2021.
-   In the European Junior Championships held in Rome, Italy, on 11 July 2021, Lana won 3 medals. Gold in the Women’s 100 Butterfly, and silver in Women’s 50 Butterfly and Women’s 200 Butterfly.
-   She competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as the second-youngest swimmer and finished 19th.

She has already won 5 medals in international competitions in her young career: 1 GOLD, 2 SILVER, and 2 BRONZE medals.


The Donation Campaign

Lana Pudar is healthy and strong. She doesn’t need donations to save her life or to fight disease. I understand that. I still think some money can be collected and donated to help a young girl become even better. Maybe one day a World or Olympic champion.

Lana or her team doesn’t know about this activity!
I don’t know them!

This is not an official donations campaign yet, but I would like it to become one. However, before it does, I want to hear community opinions. Is this a cause you would like to donate to, or should I forget about it?

I would like to collect donations in BTC and ETH and find a way to give it to Lana and her team or convert it to fiat. Anything that can help.

I understand that I don’t have positive trading feedback to hold money. So I have no problem using a forum escrow to keep the funds if the community thinks that’s the right thing to do. I would just like most of the money to go to the right person and not to third parties! Everyone who knows Croatian or Serbian can check the sources and confirm if this story is true or not.

Let’s hear your thoughts and ideas. 


For more information on Lana Pudar, check the below sources:
1.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana_Pudar
2.   https://www.instagram.com/lanapudar/?hl=en
3.   https://www.facebook.com/lanapudarofficial
4.   https://www.fina.org/athletes/1198499/lana-pudar/medals