The role of the Hastor Foundation in lives of its scholarship recipients is immeasurable—a quality that scholarship recipients always highlight, stating how they were inspired to actively work on self-improvement. It is in the Hastor Foundation that many of them learn what volunteer work and its benefits are, and over time start promoting them through activism in their local communities. Many of them recognize the Hastor Foundation as an opportunity to apply the knowledge acquired at universities, but also as an opportunity to learn new things and broaden their horizons. One of them is Amar Velagić, who has recognized the Hastor Foundation as a space for personal growth, and he has been working hard to show that in his daily work and contribution to the Foundation.
Amar comes from Bugojno and he has been a Hastor Foundation scholarship recipient for more than ten years. He majored in the Latin Language, Roman Literature and Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, and he is currently enrolled in the master studies of Pedagogy at the same faculty. For his effort, hard work and success at the end of the first cycle of studies Amar was granted the university acknowledgement The Silver Badge. Besides standing out with his academic achievements, Amar is also a manager of two collections of poems for young poets in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he volunteered on various positions in non-governmental organizations and actively participated in numerous national and international projects.
Regarding his activism at the Hastor Foundation, Amar has had an opportunity to volunteer in countless ways. In the very beginning of his volunteer journey Amar was a mentor to a group of younger scholarship holders; for the last year he has been volunteering in the monitoring team of the Hastor Foundation, the type of volunteer work that includes online or in-person visits to mentor meetings so that we can get a clearer image of the ways our scholarship holders spend their volunteer hours. Another task of the monitoring team members is to evaluate the quality of activities that mentors do with their younger fellow scholarship recipients and to evaluate the significance that those activities hold for both mentors and mentees. After the visit to mentor meetings, the monitoring team have to write reports so that mentor meetings can be improved.
The Hastor Foundation recognized Amar’s potential and hence, during the period of making a new volunteer model, included him in the volunteer activities of giving pedagogical and psychological as well as didactic-methodical guidelines to scholarship recipients volunteering as mentors. As Amar had the opportunity to share these competencies with his fellow scholarship recipients, he points out how it was his pleasure to see the Hastor Foundation guiding his scholarship recipients to their primary occupations and interests by enabling their life-long self-growth and development and by providing opportunities to practically apply the knowledge acquired at universities. Amar also shares with us how deeply thankful he is to the Foundation for restoring human dignity in countless ways.
In my opinion, each and every one of scholarship recipients can continue promoting the principal aims that the Hastor Foundation sets, and we’re always there for one another. Building the healthy collective spirit that was formed on the successful shoulders of anindividual is the main factor in preserving our planet.
Amar points out the positive influence the Hastor Foundation has had on his journey of success and education. For Amar personally the volunteer work in the Foundation has made him more responsible and aware that every job is based on continuity and specific habits and routines, but what is the most important in the Foundation is that it encourages humanity that isn’t based on egoism, but rather on synergy, cohesiveness and empathy. Volunteerism for Amar means to personally grow and develop and to not forget the basic human virtue—to help others in every situation; not only when they are in a need. To end, Amar tells us that our generations are lacking in exactly those qualities that the Hastor Foundation has been promoting ever since its inception: self-improvement, resilience, perseverance, safety and emotional competence.
I learned in the Hastor Foundation that we should build the pillars of society based on self- improvement, expertise, qualifications and our competencies. This big family, whose member I’ve been for more than ten years, has also woven a thread of perseverance in me; the perseverance in the idea of peace building, abundance, collectivism, intercultural dialogue, healthy relations, recognizing other’s emotions and understanding others. I’ve realized that if we follow the path paved with the virtues of humanity, the soul won’t lose its shine – love.
Prepared by: Aldina Šaljić
