College education for 10 talented students in BiH

BOSANA FOUNDATION

Scholarship and Personal Development Program

Quarterly Report

January- March 2014

Executive Summary:

The first quarter of this year has been thus far the most promising start of the new year with so many great opportunities and productive results that we hope will spill to all other quarters for the remainder of the year. Our students were also in the midst of exams so our focus was to also make sure they produce good results.  Still, the most exciting part of this quarter was the Bosana students Team building that the Bosana Board has decided to become a focal part of the scholarship program each year. 

Students and Program Update:

All thirty-eight (38) Bosana students in this first quarter had to prepare for their midterms and final semester exams that were scheduled in the first and second month of this quarter. Few of our students had also “carried over” few of their exams from the previous academic year that they had to pass in order to be able to advance into the following year.  For some this presented a problem and a lot more work but only one student that was already on suspension failed to pass his exams and will be removed from the scholarship program.  The rest of the students were taking exams only from the classes taken in the fall/winter semester of 2013/2014. Overall it was a successful semester.

Majority of our students have taken and passed all of their exams. We still have few students that were not able to take exams due to the unavailability of professors and they will have to wait for April to be able to take these exams.  Other students were not able to take those classes that they did not pass in this semester because they are not offered in the midterm of the year but rather only at the end of each year.  This year, we are expecting to have seven graduates and we are trying to help these students take their final exams and prepare for the next step, whether we are talking about continuing their higher education or venturing into the employment world.

Since Bosana Foundation registered in 2010, this will be our first “graduating class” of our scholarship recipients so we are very excited to show our donors these seven graduates who otherwise would not be able to have a college diploma. For those graduating this year, we have transferred them into our Professional Development program, which is more geared towards preparing them for life after college.   This means that they are excused from volunteering the 10 hours minimum that our students must complete and rather we encourage them to spent this time studying, writing their resumes, applying for jobs and possibly even starting to either volunteer or work at potential companies that might employ them after finishing their universities. 

We have also forged a new partnership with CPE (Centre for Professional Education) that will give all of our students take free classes that they offer: among them are language classes, computers, graphic and web design, etc.

Worth mentioning is one of our students Mirzet Omerovic studying Economy at the University in Tuzla who drastically improved his grades after receiving a laptop donation from a company in Sarajevo, “Wood Team” whom we contacted amongst other donors asking to help us get Mirzet a laptop because he really needed it for his studies and also to be able to make additional income to help his parents.  This new laptop inspired Mirzet to try even harder to succeed and also to show his appreciation to Bosana Foundation and our donors.  This shows how our students recognize the opportunities we are giving them and are willing to work hard. 

Nevertheless, the most rewarding and exciting news of this quarter is the students’ gathering for Bosana Team Building that took place for two days, which included an 8hour hike to the highest village on the Bjelasnica mountain and the next day rafting on the Neretva river in Konjic.  The goal of the team building was for all of our students to get together, collaborate and learn more about nature and history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.   Our goal was also for students to do something that none of them have ever done, to test their limits and through this team building of survival in nature, extreme weather, necessity for collaboration and support of one another learn that only together can they achieve real results, that they put limits on themselves what they think that they can and cannot do and that the hard and most exhausting moments are when you are at the top, right before you succeed.  This was an amazing adventure and an eye opener for many students who thought they could never climb a mountain, walk for that long, had fear of water, lacked social skills, etc.  At the end of these two days, all students went home with new and real friendships, appreciation for one another and themselves, and with a memory that will last them a lifetime.  It was also a nice and rewarding break for many after the exams and before the new semester.

During this Team Building weekend students also presented their Vision Boards, an assignment that was given to them to give them an opportunity to portray their hopes and dreams of the future. Students voted amongst themselves and chose Edin Serifovic vision board as the best one. His reward will be to help him towards a realization of one of the visions from the board, which will be most likely a bike trip to Greece this summer.  Selma Kurtanovic vision board was awarded second place and she won 100KM.

Final update of this quarter was the essay contest that we offered to all of our students to write on the topic “how would they address the unemployment problem of the youth in BIH”.  The prize for the best essay was an all paid trip to Los Angeles for one of the students to attend our 5^th Annual Benefit and for a chance to meet our donors.  On march 31^st, an essay committee comprised of seven (7) members selected Nadja Kasumovic essay as the best one.  Nadja was also selected our best student last year and received a laptop.  

Program Challenges:

Some of the students had issues with their exams due to some of their personal problems but also not being able to pass their exams and therefore not satisfying our expectations from each student that’s required to maintain the scholarship.  While we always do our best to avoid any student losing the scholarship, for some its simply not possible unless they do their part and pass the exams. Currently, we have one student who has notified us on time that due to his medical problems he might not be able to successfully complete the year and we are always sympathetic to students who come to us on time and show that they are doing their best bust are simply prevented due to medical problems.  However, one of the students has lost his scholarship after this semester because his contract stated that unless he passes all of his grates in this semester he will lose the scholarship because he was already given a second chance when he decided to completely change majors and start from beginning.   However, since he is a child from an orphanage without any family, we have given him a third and last chance that he has to pass all of his classes by the end of the school year and if he is able to continue into the next school year in September, that we will reinstate his scholarship.  This is the final chance that we will give him; however, from now until September his scholarship funds are frozen.

Donor driven update worth mentioning: 

At the end of January, Selma Cosic, a young lady originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina how now lives and works in Richmond, Virginia organized a private fundraiser with a group of her closest friends and she raised $1000. Soon after this event, she also decided to start a campaign to raise additional $3,000 by running a marathon with a group of her friends.  She managed to even surpass that amount and raise $3,600.  In addition to that, she will use her companies matching funds to match everything that she has raised and she hopes that by June of this year, she will have donated to Bosana together with her company $10,000.  This is just one of the events that has been organized by our supporters in 2014 and it only goes to show how much Bosana Foundation is making an impact on young people both in BiH and around the world.