By Ljiljana Vasic | Director
In 2013, with the very first of your donations, we made a decision to support Plana, then a 13-year old girl whose family fled Kosovo in 1999. She was a seventh grade pupil and her twin sisters were in the third grade. Neither her Mom or Dad had any regular income, but they were struggling to build some kind of a normal family life outside any Collective Centre for refugees.
Plana was a very good pupil, but in a small place where they lived, there was no secondary school and she thought that her parents could never afford transportation costs for her to go to the secondary school in a nearby town. Since we provided her with a scholarship, the horizons opened up for her and she did her best to prepare for the entrance exam and enrol into the secondary school she wanted to go to. The following four years have passed quickly...
Today, she is busy looking for a graduation party dress and preparing for the entrance exam at the Academy for Preschool Teachers! “There were times when I thought I would never be able to continue my education after the elementary school. There was just no money at home for that. My twin sisters were little, they needed a school snack much more than I needed a bus ticket to school. And there was no money for both.”
With her scholarship money, she managed to pay for the bus fare, textbooks, new boots in winter... and even to buy something small for her sisters. And she kept the very good average grade throughout the secondary school.
For the last three months, she has been going to the Preschool Teachers’ Academy every weekend to prepare better for the entrance exams, determined to give her best and get accepted there. At the same time, she is helping her younger sisters Isidora and Teodora prepare for the final exam at their elementary school, choose their “little prom” dresses and advise them on the choice of the secondary school they could enrol in autumn.
Her mother finally got a steady, regular job a couple of months ago, so in addition to Plana's scholarship, they have one more regular source of money in the house every month. Her father is still working as a construction worker on irregular basis, and although they cannot count on any regular salary coming from his work, he is a very hard-working man, so employers tend to call him back whenever there is an opportunity and need for extra pair of hands.
“You know, all my peers in the fourth grade of the secondary school will have a graduation excursion to Greece, so I am also picking the raspberries at weekends to earn money to go with them. I think I will have enough money by the end of the month. And I have saved some money from the scholarship, so I could pay for the trip. No, I don’t need any money there, maybe just to buy a little something for my sisters as a souvenir, but just to go there and swim in the sea will be the most wonderful thing in the world!” – says this now almost adult girl with a broadest smile possible.
“I am so proud of her and her sisters”, says her Mom. “And you know, all her ambition and drive to do her best in everything she does have been born the day you called and said that you would help her with the scholarship. Its like she started believing that if she gives her best, the skies will open up and the doors will open up for her. This is what she has been telling her sisters all the time too – give everything you do your best and the help will come from somewhere when you need it” - tells us her Mom.
Please, help us continue supporting these children, enabling them to get education and become accomplished young adults. On June the 20th, the World Refugee Day, GlobalGiving Foundation will organise a Bonus Day when your donations will be matched 100% as long as the matching funds last. We are counting on your help to be able to bring happiness and enable success of these children. We would like to provide at least ten scholarships to the children of the refugee and displaced people in Serbia next school year. Help us achieve this goal!
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