Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has is a quote from the anthropologist Margaret Mead. Guided by this quote, many scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation saw ways to move society in a positive direction and one of these is Ajla Imamović. Ajla Imamović was born on 26. 08. 1999. in Tuzla, and she has been a scholarship holder od the Foundation for a long time. She is a fourth-year student of Sanitary health at the Faculty of Medicine in Tuzla.

She is a long-term volunteer of Živinice’s Red Cross organization where she accumulated a lot of experience in all areas of action, following the mission and vision of this humanitarian organization. Furthermore, she was one of the organizers of the youth camp “Antistress therapy and psychosocial support”. This youth camp realized a series of workshops that dealt with psychotherapy and activities which aimed to control depression and stressful situations with which volunteers usually deal. Moreover, a practice session called “Help to the helpers” was organized with the help of leading psychotherapists. The event was attended by more than 80 volunteers from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ajla points out that her experience at this camp was directed towards a more expert-based refinement in this field, as well as towards topics that are a great problem in our community, especially now when we’re encountering various hardships. Furthermore, this event helped Ajla realize that universal values and the principles of activism were very important in today’s world. Ajla and her colleagues managed to create a concept that helped them exchange mutual experiences and refine other aspects of social action. This concept also protects from social stagnation and environments that negatively affect the human ability to act.

Events like this help create new life directions that we can be proud of because they form new networks of friendships that allow us to mutually act and solve the current problems. It’s a positive fact that 80 people will benefit from this event, within an environment that prevented the potential pitfalls of stress-induction and anxiousness caused by overthinking. The attending youth were distanced from their mobile phones and modern technology, which, despite some of its advantages, produces a long list of psychologically damaging effects to us and our environment. Ajla was especially honoured for having a chance to meet younger colleagues and explain the advantages of volunteering, social activism and all the things that affirm our personality and act positively on our environment.

As a Hastor Foundation scholarship holder, I had a chance to meet with various ways of affirmation in society as a whole and segments important to volunteering and healthy environments for every developing person. Through scholarship, I received support in working in the non-governmental sector. I also want to inspire people and be a major factor of change in society. The youth should not be a problem of our society but rather a valuable resource that is to be used and supported until a stagnation is met.

We want to thank our wonderful Ajla and we wish her a lot of luck in her future volunteering activities. Small steps of great people are the beginning of significant changes!

Amina Abaspahić

Translated by: Ešref Mehanović