That we too often underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a hearing, a sincere compliment or the smallest caring act that can potentially turn a life around, American writer Leo Buscaglia noticed and then wrote down. Through their activities in the form of volunteering, scholarship recipients of the Hastor Foundation keep in mind every day that those subtle and smallest signs of attention addressed to another person can improve someone’s day or turn their life around. Below, we bring you the story of Lamija Horić, who this time has the flattering title of Scholar of the Month. Lamija Horić was born in 2000 in Zenica. He began his higher education at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zenica, Department of German Language and Literature. At the end of this year, our Lamija successfully completed her studies and at the end of her journey she received the academic title of professor of German language and literature.
During her studies, she also started working at the Licensed Examination and Education Center „EDUKO“ Zenica, where she teaches the German language course. Lamija points out that she sees working on the course as an opportunity to leave lasting good behind her, passing on useful knowledge to her students, and that the classroom is her great passion and the place where she feels most useful and fulfilled. As she says, she likes to spend her free time reading as a hobby, which for her is a trip to some different dimensions of reality, from which she always and inevitably returns with new insights and knowledge. Our Lamija has a great love for nature and ecology, which is why she has a constant need to work on environmental awareness of her surroundings. This type of activism was particularly pronounced during her high school days, when she participated in the state competition „Young Eco-Reporters“ organized by the platforms „Social Innovation Incubator MUNJA“ and „EKOPAK“. Winning second place was an additional incentive that the fight for clean nature must be part of her everyday life, but also the everyday life of each of us.
Our Lamija has been a scholarship recipient of the Hastor Foundation for almost three years and states that she applied for the scholarship without any great expectations and that she had no idea that the Hastor Foundation would become her guide, security and, above all, a friend she can always count on, regardless of what is life circumstances happen. As part of volunteering, she is active in the translation team for the German language. She is in charge of translating newsletters, texts, articles as well as proofreading the translations of her colleagues. Regarding volunteering as part of the translation team of the Hastor Foundation, Lamija says the following:
My work within this team has multiple significance for me. From a professional point of view, translation and proofreading provide constant acquisition of new vocabulary from various fields that we do not encounter in everyday speech. In addition, they are an extremely good basis for engaging in translation work in the future. In addition to the mentioned benefits, there is certainly also work in a team where we achieved very good communication and cooperation. Through working on various tasks at the Hastor Foundation, I met many scholarship holders. Although I often didn’t see them live, I often found myself in their stories and experiences and thus got the impression that we have known each other for a long time, and that the Hastor Foundation is responsible for our connection. It is this networking of all scholarship holders of the Hastor Foundation and the feeling that in every part of Bosnia and Herzegovina we have someone on whom we can rely in case of need, what makes the Hastor Foundation special.
Throughout her life, Lamija was faced with difficult and seemingly insurmountable situations that she had to face, and the Hastor Foundation provided her with encouragement and strength, as she points out the following:
The fact that at the age of 18 I was left without my greatest support, support and inspiration, my mother, forced me to grow up suddenly and enter the life of an adult before the time really came. Taking over most of her responsibilities, in addition to school and numerous others, I vowed to fulfill my mother’s greatest wish – to become a teacher. The Hastor Foundation recognized the weight I was carrying on my still small back and decided to become one of my biggest helpers along the way, for which I am immensely grateful. Today, when I realized it, I am sad because I cannot share that joy with her. Regardless, I know she’s proud of me and cheering me on.
Lamija’s life path was paved with difficult life situations and we are truly happy that in our Foundation she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, which gave her the strength to continue shining as she had been shining until then. Lamia’s words about the Hastor Foundation are transmitted in full:
For me, the Hastor Foundation is one of the best teachers a young person can have on the path of their maturation and growth. The values on which the work of the Foundation itself is based are the values it instills in us and by which we continue to be guided throughout life. Do good deeds, help those in need, take care of your environment, educate yourself in order to be useful to our society, think globally and work locally, constantly work on yourself, be a responsible and conscientious individual in society, be a role model for younger people from ourselves… these are all universal values that we, as scholarship recipients of our Foundation, adopt and pass on to our loved ones and other members of society. Taking the above into account, we can say that the entire BiH benefits from the Hastor Foundation in addition to its scholarship recipients. Society, which really needs this type of profit in order to reject all negative phenomena and develop into a healthy and fruitful society.
Prepared by: Amina Abaspahić
