The Hastor Foundation can boast about hard-working, ambitious and successful scholarship holders who achieve notable results in the field of education and science. The Foundation’s team consists of young volunteers who contribute to its work by improving it with their knowledge and skills. It is precisely such values and commitment to volunteer engagement within the Hastor Foundation that earn the scholarship holders the title of Scholarship Holder of the Month. Read below about Semra Nešust, the scholarship holder who won the title this month.
Through the Hastor Foundation Newsletter, which is published every month, we have the opportunity to get to know young and successful people who can serve as an inspiration to everyone. One of them is Semra Nešust, who comes from Bugojno. She spent her childhood and education in Jajce. She successfully completed the first cycle of studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences – Department of Communication/Journalism – in 2021. As Semra points out, she has always loved challenges and new experiences, and for this reason she decided to enroll in the second cycle at the Faculty of Traffic and Communications, Department of Communication Technologies.
At the very beginning of her second cycle, it was difficult to get used to a new environment, a new occupation and, ultimately, a new topic. However, with work, effort and persistence, she managed to catch up with the material and what the other students completed in the first cycle, which was necessary in order to successfully acquire new knowledge in the second cycle of studies, since they are interconnected. She encountered most of the concepts, subjects and projects for the first time and had to start from the beginning and do a lot of work. Semra states that, while every other person told her to graduate on time and that she would not succeed, she organized her life in such a way as to show, primarily herself as much as she can, and then others, that she can succeed, without her private life suffering. She managed to pass all the exams, even the most difficult ones, on the first exam dates. She is currently in her final year at the Faculty of Traffic and Communications, and her persistence can serve as an example to all of us of how the well-known proverb that you can do anything when you want to is absolutely true.
Semra has been a scholarship recipient of the Hastor Foundation since the sixth grade of elementary school.
I can safely say that I have been a part of the Hastor Foundation almost since their inception. I got the scholarship back when teacher Ramo was going to more distant places and looking for children that the Foundation would give scholarships to. I believe that I had luck that day, and today, many years later, I am convinced that my life began to move in a better and more beautiful direction and that the Hastor Foundation still has a great influence on my future, but also on all that I have already become.
In addition to the extremely successful and productive years spent at her chosen study, our Semra especially stands out in her volunteer engagement.
I volunteered with our mentors as a scholarship student in elementary and then high school. For three years I was a mentor to high school students, and now for the second year I have been working as a member of the administration team of the Hastor Foundation. I trained new I gave trainings to new members of the administrative team and told my life’s journey several times at monthly meetings for scholarship students. Mentoring helped me get closer to high school students and to first become their friend and only then their mentor. I had a friendly relationship with them all the time, and even now, when some of them have already become mentors themselves, I have a habit of contacting them, greeting them at meetings and joining them for a while. The fact that I started my association with some of them as a scholarship student, then I was a mentor to those same people, and now I see them as high school graduates or even students, gives me a special feeling. I am in regular contact with several of them and I can say that in all of this I have met people who I might not have met without the Foundation, and who are currently part of my everyday life and my life.
Our Foundation gave Semra a new and more beautiful outlook on life and brought the idea of philanthropy into her everyday life as a basis for action.
The Hastor Foundation taught me many values that built me into the person I am today. With this family, I acquired my work habits, had greater motivation for learning, work and effort, but at the same time I felt independent when I received a scholarship, bearing in mind the fact that I received it for my work and effort and that, in this way, I can make it easier for my family. When volunteering in my local community, we often beautified our city of Jajce, helped students in the dormitory, gave instructions and helped people during the pandemic caused by the corona virus. There are actually so many events that I can’t even remember many of them, but I can certainly say that I truly live the Foundation’ message every day.
In September of last year, Semra, like the other scholarship holders, received an email in which it was emphasized to send a CV if the scholarship students were interested in working. Without expecting much, Semra sent an email, and within three days, a positive turn happened again in her life, like the day she was selected as a scholarship recipient of the Hastor Foundation. After talking with Amela Dedić, she got the opportunity to interview for a job at Prevent Labs as a corporate communications associate. Semra states that at the beginning she was skeptical about how to combine work with university, but, like all previous challenges, she accepted this one bravely and without hesitation and managed to combine work, university, friends and family. Our Semra got her dream job, all thanks to her efforts and work. Her message to all fellow scholarship holders is:
Whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability, take risks and don’t settle for mediocrity. All your dreams can become reality if you have the courage to pursue them.
We wish our Semra much success in her current and future engagements and that she forever remains an inspiring guiding star for the message that effort and risk always pay off.
Prepared by: Amina Abaspahić
Translated by: Nejra Galijašević
