Rubric of active youth is a place where we introduce the most hard-working scholarship holders of the Foundation every month. Those are the scholarship holders who aim at investing their time and energy into achieving greater goals, improving themselves as well as their community. In the way in which RAM (working memory) is an indispensable part of a computer, the Foundation’s work would not be the same without those scholarship holders who, besides volunteering at the Hastor Foundation, work very hard in their own local communities, representing the Hastor Foundation and its mission in the best possible way. RAM is a rubric dedicated to those who actively work on making themselves, as well as their community, better. It is our pleasure to say a few words about one of them each month, and this time, we are writing about Omer Muminović.
Omer Muminović is a scholarship holder who comes from a small and beautiful place located on the slopes of the Majevica mountain – Teočak, and he has been a scholarship holder of the Hastor Foundation for two years. He graduated from the Behram Bey madrasa in Tuzla with honors, after which he entered the Department of Economics and International Business at the University of Sarajevo School of Science and Technology (SSST). In his free time, he enjoys reading, writing and going out into nature, and when his duties permit, he likes to watch the new episodes of the quiz “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”
This scholarship holder’s volunteer journey started in his native Teočak, where for a while he held the position of president of the Teočak Municipality Youth Council, and after enrolling in madrasa, Omer became active in the Tuzla Community Foundation in the “Youth Bank” program. Thanks to his volunteerism, he visited many European countries and made a large number of important acquaintances that benefited him countless times. Enrolment at the university and obligations did not prevent him from continuing his volunteer work at the “Source of the Hope” foundation” and the “Youth for Peace” association. As a volunteer in this association, he gained a rich first-hand experience and learned how to unite and repair, rather than divide and destroy, the common heritage and cultural treasures of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says that all this helped him become part of the Hastor Foundation, which brings together young people from all over the country who share the same or similar interests.
Volunteering made me value things like friendship and helping others in need, and it helped me learn how to take advantage of the opportunities offered at various educations and seminars, which, in the end, improved my personal and professional development. Through my monthly volunteering at the Hastor Foundation, I try to pass on my practical experience to the younger scholarship holders and give them advice on how and where to look for information that will be useful to them in their volunteer and activist engagement, says Omer.
Omer is currently on a student exchange in the USA as part of the “Global UGRAD Student Exchange Program” at the University of Houston-Victoria in Texas, and what is important to emphasize is that this year he is the only student from Bosnia and Herzegovina who passed the demanding selective process in this program. Our scholarship holder continued his volunteering in the USA, in the “Meals on Wheels South Texas” organization, where he helps pack and distribute meals for socially vulnerable people, which shows how much this scholarship holder cares about working to change society and the community with his small steps.
When you come from a small country like Bosnia and Herzegovina to the USA, you change your perspective on some things and notice that everything is actually in your head and in your thoughts. If we are aware that even the smallest change we make can have some impact on others, on our local community and the people who live in it, we should make that change and go in that direction, and not think what others will say or discourage and demotivate ourselves, concludes Omer.
He points out that he derives his motivation for constant activity from a certain revolt that awoke in him when he realized that the people he was surrounded by were often passive and uninterested in changes that would make life easier for many. He realized that he knows what he wants to achieve in life and that in order to fulfil the mission and vision of his life, he has to climb many steps. When he happens to stop, he just looks back at his previous experience, which in those moments motivates him and forces him to move forward. On his way to fulfilling his mission and vision, the Hastor Foundation and all its scholarship holders who are united around the same ideas – philanthropy and volunteerism – stand as strong support.
The Hastor Foundation has helped me a lot in my personal and professional development. It gave me the opportunity to transfer everything I have learned so far through informal and formal education and various trips to other scholarship holders. If you, as a person, collect knowledge and experience, and you have no one to pass it on to, it remains only for you and there is no dissemination of it. It was through the Foundation that I managed to encourage others to be active and to move from place to place and to start achieving their personal goals, ambitions and dreams, and it gives me great pleasure to see that I succeeded in my intention. The Hastor Foundation is a place that gives us the opportunity to come forward at any moment with an idea that it will generously and unconditionally support.
Omer has a strong message for the scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation:
Don’t be afraid to be different and do things that will bring only good to you and others. You have to be brave to get out of your comfort zone and meet new people, but you also have to be aware of your possibilities and potential, which you will find out the easiest if you go outside your local community. When you spend some time with other people, learn new information, improve your knowledge and skills, then you are ready to go back to your house and try to change what you wanted before you left, and maybe you were not strong enough or did not have the extra experience to do it then.
Through his successful academic and volunteer career, Omer has shown that with effort, dedication and constant work, there are almost no limits to the realization of personal and professional ideas. His trip to the USA and the rich volunteer experience that he continued outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina will surely serve as an example to all scholarship holders who plan to gain additional experience in other countries, and return to their native country and transfer their knowledge to others.
Prepared by: Aleksandra Đukić
Translated by: Semra Islamović
