The Hastor Foundation can boast of hard-working, ambitious and successful scholarship holders who achieve notable results in the fields 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 dedication to volunteer engagement within the Hastor Foundation that earn scholarship holders the title of Scholarship Holder of the Month, month after month. Read below about Sara-Farah Materne, the scholarship holder who took home the title this month.
The writer Andre Žid says that „a man cannot discover new oceans until he has the courage to lose sight of the coast“. Many people today do not have the courage to embark on some new adventures that can bring them many benefits and positive and unrepeatable life experiences. The story of our scholarship holder of the month, Sara-Farah, shows that it is never too late to try to achieve something that we have been dreaming about for a long time, it is enough that we want it so much that we are ready to leave the security of the coast and surrender to what the sea brings us.
Sara-Farah comes from Sarajevo, where her entire educational journey also took place. She attended the First Gymnasium (language major) and the Secondary Music School (solo musician – flautist major) in parallel, and then she enrolled in the Faculty of Science and Mathematics at the University of Sarajevo, Department of Computer Science. She is currently a final year graduate student at the aforementioned faculty.
Although, in the end, she did not choose it as a profession, she says that music will always remain her first and greatest love. Through primary and secondary music school, she participated in many federal and international competitions where, in different categories, she won high prizes. Currently, she enjoys music more as a listener, and her favorite activities are going to various musical events. Although she has been a scholarship holder of the Hastor Foundation since last year, she points out that she followed the work of the Foundation on social networks from the shadows throughout her university education, and today she speaks with sadness about how she regrets not finding the courage to apply for a scholarship earlier.
I started following the work of the Hastor Foundation when I was just starting my studies. Then, I would occasionally follow the Foundation’s page on social networks and every time I would be delighted by the fact that there is an organization that not only provides financial support to successful young pupils and students from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is truly proud of them and promotes all their successes. Although I maintained a good grafe point average since my first year of study, I had a certain amount of fear about applying for a scholarship because I was afraid of failure. However, last year (during the first year of my graduate studies) I decided to apply and from then on my journey within the Hastor Foundation began. From this perspective, of course, I regret not having done it earlier. Through volunteering, I had the opportunity to work a lot on myself, but also to help others, says Sara-Farah.
Sara-Farah says that she took her first volunteering steps towards the end of primary school and since then has often volunteered at various events. She points out how, in addition to all that, volunteering within the Hastor Foundation is personally significant and important to her. She recalls that, at the beginning, she did not know how she could contribute to her local community and choose appropriate volunteer activities, but later she realized that precisely through the effort to choose these activities independently, we get the incentive to listen and investigate the problematic situations we are surrounded by. Our Sara-Farah is guided by the motto that every great undertaking begins with small steps, and we will start making the world a better place if we start from our environment.
Sara-Farah, after becoming a scholarship holder of the Hastor Foundation, first had the opportunity to volunteer as a mentor to the students of her volunteer group, which was, again, an activity that involved sharing knowledge, but also working on some skills such as presentation skills, talking with children, organization of meetings, etc. She believes that through tutoring and mentoring, she gained valuable experience that will certainly be extremely useful if she finds herself in the role of a professor or lecturer in the future.
Volunteering within the administrative team of the Hastor Foundation is currently the field in which our Scholarship Holder of the Moth seeks to expand her knowledge and skills. The administrative team is responsible for the continuous collection and organization of scholarship holders’ documentation, as well as communication with all the Foundation’s scholarship holders, of which there are more than two thousand in total. The activities of this team include recording scholarship holders’ notifications, reviewing and accepting announcements and reports from volunteer meetings, and communication with third parties who provide answers to inquiries and requests, as well as general information about the Hastor Foundation, how to apply for scholarships, and the scholarship selection process. This team works very hard to make everything run smoothly.
Engagement as part of the administrative team requires responsibility, accuracy and high concentration. Although I recognized all these qualities in myself, I have always considered myself quite an introvert. This was also the main reason why, at the beginning, I didn’t know how I would manage to communicate with the rest of the team, scholarship holders and their parents, whom it is necessary to regularly inform, to ask them for information, etc. However, over time, I managed to free myself from all barriers in communication, so that today I consider myself a much more relaxed and open person, Sara-Farah points out.
For many scholarship holders, the Hastor Foundation scholarship represents much more than material things, including for Sara-Farah. Although her journey within the Hastor Foundation did not start long ago, she says that in the last year it was one of the main incentives for her to work harder and study more regularly. As the Hastor Foundation gathers the most successful young people from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, for her, she points out, it is a great honor to be among them and she says that being a part of the Foundation brings with it a kind of responsibility, but it is also one of the most important motivations for her to do as well as possible to fulfil her academic obligations. Sara-Farah emphasizes the importance of networking with other scholarship holders and spending time with young people, which, she says, is valuable in itself, but it gains additional weight when we know that they are ambitious young people from whom it is possible to get useful advice and exchange experiences with them.
I believe that through the mission of the Hastor Foundation and its continuous activities, a community of young people is created who are the initiators of positive changes in society and on whose shoulders this country can truly remain. At one of the volunteer meetings, we concluded that even after we formally cease to be scholarship holders of the Foundation, we always carry its values with us, which we continue to adhere to and cherish. I would tell the other scholarship holders to take advantage of every opportunity that comes their way in life and not to be afraid of failure. I would especially tell the younger ones that knowledge is the greatest wealth and that education is truly the choice of the winner. I would advise that everyone on their educational journey strives to be the best in what they do. Also, I advise scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation to contact one of the older scholarship holders if they have any difficulties or doubts related to continuing their education, because they must not forget that the role of the Foundation is, among other things, to be their support and guide in life, concludes Sara-Farah.
With herself as an example, Sara-Farah shows all young people how important it is to „throw ourselves into the fire“ and get out of our comfort zone, which can hold us back and limit us in many ways. By stepping out of her comfort zone, this scholarshipl holder opened a new door in her life that provided her with new opportunities and now she is boldly stepping towards new successes.
Prepared by: Aleksandra Đukić
Translated by: Nejra Galijašević
