SMALL STORIES OF BIG VOLUNTEERS – NOVEMBER

The greatest desire of man is to have someone by his side who will inspire him to achieve what he is capable of. Ralph Waldo Emerson

We witness today numerous challenging roles in the world, and one of them is the role of a mentor. Being someone’s mentor, actively guiding, pointing out mistakes, and giving advice is by no means an easy task. However, the scholarship recipients of the Hastor Foundation have the opportunity to experience this role before stepping into more challenging and advanced aspects of life. Mentoring can be unpredictable and at times exhausting, but it holds within it great wealth and lessons that can be immensely valuable in the future.

Aleksandar Josipović is a scholarship recipient from Teslić and one of the valuable mentors of the Hastor Foundation. His biography is filled with praises and awards, and he does not lag behind in his volunteer engagement. He is a fourth-year student at the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka, specializing in Music Theory and Pedagogy. Aleksandar conducts his volunteer activities online, yet that does not stop him from having meaningful and quality meetings with his group of students. He volunteers with 25 students, both elementary and high schoolers, and emphasizes that despite minor obstacles during meetings, he maintains very good contact with the students. Consequently, they consistently attend meetings in large numbers and with satisfaction.

Among other things, he also tells us the following:

During volunteering, in addition to the mandatory monthly topics we covered, I always made an effort to be available to the students, just as other members of the Hastor Foundation were to me. In this way, I tried to instill in them a love for the Foundation while also giving them a sense of belonging to this big family. Through conversation and listening to their problems, I aimed to show them that in the Foundation, we are all indispensable links and that none of us is less valuable. By helping each other in any way, even by listening to their problems, we fulfill the fundamental principle of the Hastor Foundation.

At the last meeting, Aleksandar talked to his students about the Hastor Foundation. They reminisced about the initial, simultaneously challenging and sweet steps of the Foundation. Considering Aleksandar has been a member of this large family for a long time, we believe that he shared his experiences with the students joyfully, hopefully sparking the desire for mentorship in some of them. This dedicated mentor made an effort to familiarize the students as much as possible with the significance, work, and deeds of the Hastor Foundation. The goal of mentoring meetings is for mentors to instill positive values in children and thereby raise awareness about the importance of caring for the community and doing good. This is why Aleksandar emphasizes that he carefully selects topics for his mentoring meetings because he wants to leave his mark on the students, who often see him as a role model. He feels most proud in the moment when, through conversation, he recognizes progress in children in any field, or when they themselves express it. In his opinion, at that moment, all the effort somehow gains its meaning.

Aleksandar only has words of praise for the Hastor Foundation – besides financial aid, he highlighted the numerous connections he has made. Moreover, he says that through active dedication and volunteering, he has developed a desire, perhaps even a habit, to help anyone and willingly assist everyone.

The Hastor Foundation, through its various activities, aims precisely for that – to encourage young people and remind them that kindness towards others is the key to success and happiness in life. Also, Aleksandar says that being a scholar of this foundation is a great privilege, citing mentoring as the reason. According to him, he owes a great deal of gratitude to the Hastor Foundation itself because it provided him with the opportunity to participate in children’s upbringing in a special way. Also, undoubtedly, some of them will consider him their role model in the future.

Finally, we asked Aleksandar for a message for all our current and future scholars, and he briefly stated the following: