Stories worth reading are often hidden in the lives of people who are sometimes unaware of how inspiring they really are. Scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation contribute to the creation of a better and happier today with their continuous volunteer activities. By talking about important topics, they help high school and elementary school students to create great ambitions and learn true values. One wonderful story from this month’s volunteer meeting is brought to us by Luciana Marcheta, a student mentor who enriches students’ knowledge with her monthly meetings and regularly brings new ideas to the Foundation.
Luciana’s team consists of five students, and the special feature of this small group of high school students is that they all come from different cities. They regularly hold their meetings online, but this doesn’t diminish their commitment and activity. This group of valuable volunteers forms a special part of the Hastor Foundation family and enriches it with stories from Srebrenica, Široki Brijeg, Travnik and Novi Travnik. With different interests, they complete their knowledge and find common topics. The topics they cover are mostly related to the main and additional topics provided for in the annual plan and program. In the meantime, they work on free topics that they prepare by communicating with each other. In this way, each of them tries on the role of a mentor at least for a moment.
Each of the students has the opportunity to propose a topic that is interesting to them, after which Luciana, as a mentor, chooses appropriate topics and focuses on them in more detail. This small mentoring group consists of Marina Trišić, Kemal Omerović, Matej Gašpar, Emina Đaja and Lamija Omeragić, and their mentor Luciana divides her 5 hours of volunteering into five one-hour meetings so that the students can pay better attention and be more active. For each meeting, Luciana determines a special topic to be devoted to that day, so that she and her hardworking team cover five topics per month. This month, they devoted themselves to sports, proper nutrition and an adequate lifestyle, and spiced it all up with the topic “Ways of Dressing”, where they discussed whether and, if so, how the style of dressing describes an individual’s personality.
This small mentoring group consists of Marina Trišić, Kemal Omerović, Matej Gašpar, Emina Đaja and Lamija Omeragić, and their mentor Luciana divides her 5 hours of volunteering into five one-hour meetings so that the students can pay better attention and be more active. For each meeting, Luciana determines a special topic to be devoted to that day, so that she and her hardworking team cover five topics per month. This month, they devoted themselves to sports, proper nutrition and an adequate lifestyle, and spiced it all up with the topic “Ways of Dressing”, where they discussed whether and, if so, how the style of dressing describes an individual’s personality.
Luciana told us what one of their meetings looks like. At the beginning of the meeting, they initially repeat the most important concepts from the previous volunteer meeting, and then deal with the topic that is planned for the current month. Most often, these are previously prepared presentations with adequate illustrations. During the preparation of the presentation, but also during the volunteering itself, Luciana uses various internet platforms, videos, quizzes of (general) knowledge and surveys that she finds on the internet, and everything is, of course, adapted to the topic being addressed. In addition to the above, according to the possibilities and time they have available, they also hold debates, where students choose a side of the debate and thus communicate about the current topic.
Luciana told us what one of their meetings looks like. At the beginning of the meeting, they initially repeat the most important concepts from the previous volunteer meeting, and then deal with the topic that is planned for the current month. Most often, these are previously prepared presentations with adequate illustrations. During the preparation of the presentation, but also during the volunteering itself, Luciana uses various internet platforms, videos, quizzes of (general) knowledge and surveys that she finds on the internet, and everything is, of course, adapted to the topic being addressed. In addition to the above, according to the possibilities and time they have available, they also hold debates, where students choose a side of the debate and thus communicate about the current topic.
The students only had the words of praise for their mentor.
Meetings are interesting and we welcome them with excitement. We learn a lot of useful things and have fun at the same time. Our mentor explains the topic in detail and presents it in the best way with a presentation or video. We always communicate at the meeting and with her help we got rid of the nervousness and fear of public speaking. What makes me especially happy at these meetings is that we support each other, and we like to help each other. – Emina Đaja
Finally, Luciana told her fellow mentors how to make the meetings more interesting and of higher quality.
My message to other fellow mentors is to always communicate with students. Communication, or more precisely conversation, is a source of knowledge, i.e., new knowledge and, in my opinion, the most ideal way of monitoring the student’s situation, whether it is a problem or that everything is in the best order. Also, regarding the way of conducting volunteer meetings, I would tell my fellow mentors to be creative and to convey their knowledge in the most beautiful way to the students who will become mentors upon enrolling in the faculties. In the mentioned way, the goal can be achieved that the students are active, like meetings and eagerly await new volunteer activities and learning new concepts, examples and the like. In a fun and interesting way, you can achieve the goal that students are always physically and mentally present at volunteer meetings.
Prepared by: Adelisa Begić
