After escaping death in Srebrenica due to a combination of different circumstances, four children from the Dautbašić family found salvation in the Home for children without parental care in Tuzla. Without parents, but with a strong sense of responsibility and hard work that they had in them, they walked resolutely through life, with the help of educators whom they still fondly remember.
We spoke with Almedina and Almir Dautbašić on the topic of the campaign “For my happier childhood”. The aim of the campaign is to adapt the rooms in which 13 girls live in the Home. Almedina believes that this will be indescribable happiness for children:
“I still remember my two rooms here in the Home. We were first in an old room where the mattresses were decaying, but after a month they moved us to tidy rooms. For us as children, it was a dream come true. In order to motivate us to be as tidy as possible, “families” competed in hygiene. The title of the best family was held by the one whose premises were the cleanest. It was easy for us because everything was new, while on the other side, it was practically impossible to maintain the old room. “
In the rooms that were then newly renovated, children were happy hang out and socialize, Almir recalls. They say that they were happy to stay in a beautiful and clean environment. “The campaign is very commendable in that sense, because some new children who live there now will feel as great as I did then. It will bring smiles back to their faces, and I’m not saying it just like that. The hardest part of life for us who are left without parents or who for various reasons cannot or do not want to take care of us, is acceptance. Then when you come to terms with your destiny, when you accept it, you begin to feel at home in the Home. Because it is your house in which you live in, and every child deserves a decent living space”, explains Almir.
Life in puberty is difficult even when you have parents, Almedina thinks, and especially when you don’t have them. In the most difficult moments, she found solace in the educator Mirsada, who treated them as her own children. After leaving Srebrenica, she saved her brother with her ingenuity, hiding him in a bus under a blanket, while her father’s last words echoed in her head: “Always stay together.” That’s what they did. Today, Dautbašić’s children are successful, educated and employed young people, who teach their children to accept diversity. Almedina has a degree in economics, Almir has a master’s degree in pharmacy, his youngest brother is a construction technician, and his oldest sister works as a hairdresser in Germany. The jobs they do today have enabled them financial stability, and they say that one of the educators deserves credit for that as well. Through conversations with him, they came to a decision on which study to enroll in.
“Looking at it now, we had all the basic conditions in the Home. We could have had more, but now it’s irrelevant. We knew that school was our only way out and that was the only thing my father expected of us. Playing outside as much as I wanted was allowed only if I had good grades. Our father was a miner and janitor at a local school and had access to all the information. And when there were problems, he did not react to the first one, but would give us space to solve it ourselves. So we somehow continued on our own through life,” Almir recalls.
When it comes to raising funds for the renovation, Almedina and Almir agree that many citizens of BiH live a difficult life, but they do have more than the children living in the Home. They believe that there is no obstacle for the one who has little to donate to a good cause: “We know what it’s like when you get to the end of the notebook, and the educator doesn’t have another notebook at the moment, or when you don’t have toothpaste anymore … We actually have quite enough, we even can donate and make those children happy, if we are doing it from the heart.”
Our interviewees, as they mentioned, are most hurt by injustice and generalization. Once you become Domac (resident living in the Home), various nicknames are usually given to children living in the Home, although these may not be true at all. They fight against such generalizations even today through their children and in conversation with other parents, and since they are taught to always strive for a higher goal, they do not stop hoping that soon someone will raise the question of what happens to children who are 18 years old and they leave the Home, lose all protection. On this, they are determined, we need to work systematically and seriously now, and in the meantime, a nice environment for the lives of those who do not have their parents when they need them the most, is the least we can all contribute to together.
Read more about the campaign “For my happier childhood” and how to donate at: https://doniraj.ba/project/view/za-moje-sretnije-djetinjstvo
