University students who are also scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation take their time each month to participate in events within their local community, offer help to anyone in need, and organize various activities.
Our scholarship holder from Bosanska Krupa and a second-year student at the Department of Criminology at the Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Security Studies in Sarajevo, Aida Kauković, has been contributing to the Pomozi.ba Association for more than a year with her volunteering engagement.
I became familiar with the true concept of volunteering through non-governmental organizations. They help young people by steering them towards specific activities in their community and socially beneficial projects, but they also guide them towards broadening their horizons regarding the actual process of life.
All of this has indirectly impacted the creation of my own perception of volunteering, which was new to me at that time. It’s the game we all play, and it’s called life. Someone gets lost in it, someone wins, but there’s a group of people who always win, and these are the people who give.
In the previous year, Aida had the chance to volunteer in Urfa via the European Voluntary Service (which changed its name to European Solidarity Corps) by holding English language classes in the center for Syrian refugees. There, she worked on the matters of organization, execution, and evaluation of the training on social justice and educational activities for the most vulnerable group of people – child refugees.
I think there’s a common misconception among people that everything we do needs to give us something in return. Let’s receive this in the form of gratitude, kindness, and knowing we helped someone else. This is not my first project within the European Voluntary Service, but it’s one of the most significant factors that influenced me as a person.
Aida launched her own non-profit program called In Someone Else’s Shoes, inviting the Bosnian public to share stories that fight against marginalization and discrimination with the goal of raising awareness about various social issues among the common folk. Besides that, Aida is a director, and her documentaries have resulted in significant changes for the marginalized groups, which is, according to her, the goal of everything she does.
Nejla Komar
