Despite the calendar indicating winter and low temperatures, the editorial team of the Hastor Foundation brings warmth to the hearts of readers with the uniqueness of this months newsletter. Alongside other sections, as we reach the middle of our newsletter, aiming to captivate your imagination, evoke emotions, and motivate, we present the story of another one of our alumnaes. You are already well aware that the Hastor Foundation is a family, and its impact on scholarship recipients is felt for years after the end of their scholarships. The Hastor Foundation and its scholars remain connected with the strongest and most special roots throughout their lives, applying what they have learned through years of volunteering in their professions, jobs, and basic life principles. After hearing stories from their current lives, we realize that what we do at the Foundation has immeasurable and inexplicable value. This gives us even greater enthusiasm for further work and progress. To conclude a successful year, we bring you the story of Sanela Avdibegović. Destiny truly writes strange stories, and this one is no exception.
Sanela lived in Foča, where she completed the first and second grades of elementary school. However, unfortunate events disrupted her peaceful childhood and the beginning of her education, forcing her to move from her hometown due to wartime events. At the beginning of the war, she relocated to Goražde, where she still lives and works today.
After completing high school, she enrolled at the Faculty of Economics in Sarajevo. She claims to have had a strong connection with numbers, particularly calculations and has always enjoyed addition and subtraction. Currently, she works as a clerk for administrative, financial, and accounting tasks at the ‘’Hasib Hadžović’’ Technical High School in Goražde.
At the beginning of her career, she had numerous opportunities to try new things and take on different roles in the same institution where she currently works. She started working in the school’s secretariat and later became the president of the Trade Union Organization, a member of the Canton Committee, and temporarily served as the director for six months. Additionally, she had the opportunity to hold a very responsible position as the director of the Directorate for Roads of the Bosnian-Podrinje Canton Goražde.
Sanela fondly remembers the time when she was a scholarship recipient of the Hastor Foundation. She learned about the Foundation through a friend, and her entry into the Foundation’s family dates back to 2006 when she became one of the first scholarship recipients. Today, Sanela is a very successful and fulfilled woman.
All our alumni highlight one thing that is particularly significant from their volunteering period within the Hastor Foundation, namely building special friendships that last to this day.
Sanela did not hide how much the Foundation helped her in self-improvement, striving to achieve goals, and strengthening her personality. The Foundation became a space where Sanela became more open and courageous. Before volunteering with the Foundation, she was reserved and lacked self-confidence. Individuals she met through the Hastor Foundation helped her confront her fears.
Unfortunately, during the war, Sanela lost her parents, and everything that happened afterward greatly affected her. She withdrew into herself to protect herself and created her own world where she felt safe.
She mostly spent her volunteering time at the Foundation with children, although she also volunteered in the administration offices of the Hastor Foundation. She fondly remembers the monthly meetings she had with high school students from Goražde, considering them a particularly special experience and something she would recommend all current scholarship recipients to experience. In conclusion, she wanted to address everyone directly and send a motivating message:
Believe in yourselves! Take advantage of what the Hastor Foundation offers you – it is unique. Usually, when you receive a scholarship from other organizations, you are not obligated to volunteer, but precisely this volunteering within the Hastor Foundation teaches us to be socially responsible, and empathetic, and how a small act to help someone can change someone’s life.
Deeply moved by this story, we once again reflected on what we want to achieve through volunteering and the connection of the Foundation with its scholarship recipients. The Hastor Foundation aims to support and empower children and young people with its work, and when we receive feedback from our former and current scholarship recipients, such as Sanela’s, we know that we are on the right path to achieving our goals.
Prepared by: Hana Hajrić
