It is true – that during each visit, a new, inspiring story is born.
To carefully observe all those people who are part of it, notice the curious eyes that wander around the Institute’s premises, listen to the needs of both individuals and organizations and proudly cherish all our own values, because of which something new is born and lives.
We ended the month of April with the visit of the representatives of the Association of Citizens of Grahovo . Perhaps if we hadn’t suddenly decided after the last session to ask the guests to tell us their first impression and experience at that moment, this story would not be a story about mutual motivation, shared emotions and honest opinions. And maybe the words would still come by themselves, one after the other, without question, without anything previously written, imagined, repeated and learned countless times.
From that dilemma, it was again shown to us that it is important to give people space to speak – about themselves, their organizations, employees, about what they feel at that moment, what occupies their thoughts and yet makes them move forward, motivate themselves and others and be an inspiration to the communities they visit, in which they operate and a motivation to the people they meet.
Since the beginning of Job shadowing, the Institute has selflessly given people that space and every time the motivation of the employees gets stronger, people become more connected, more aware of the importance of what they do and infinitely proud of themselves and those who make them so.
Through its activities, the Institute for Youth Development KULT offers support and motivates all organizations to act in their communities and be a support system. By providing the opportunity for representatives of organizations to get to know certain working procedures at the Institute, we jointly come up with new ideas and opportunities. All previous visits have proven to be very useful precisely because the partner organizations often decide to apply what they saw and learned during the visit.
In addition to new information, experiences and knowledge, we often share different emotions, hear nice words and honest opinions: “I have known the Institute for 20 years. Representatives of the Institute came to visit us, we met, went through various activities, but I was never really here. I didn’t expect this. First of all, I expected fewer people, who would take turns in one room, showing us something, but something so impressively organized, no. You gave us the opportunity today to really work with you, to visit your premises, to meet the people behind everything. The first time I experienced something like this, the first time after 25 years of experience in the non-governmental sector, I came to visit people in the full sense of the word, and then the environment and space they share every day. After so many years of experience, this is the other side of the non-governmental sector for me, this brought me some positive energy and the will to move on, to do something after this. After a whole day here and so many people taking turns, I didn’t feel tired. Those people knew exactly what we needed,” said Danka Zelić, executive director of the Association of Grahovo Women Citizens.
“I had no expectations. I was especially surprised by such a positive approach to someone from the outside, who is not from this organization. In general, we are all used to organizations being closed, and you have opened your space to us. I felt really comfortable, like at home, so to speak, and that’s primarily a bit unusual for me, but very good” , added Josipa Mihaljević, a volunteer.
To the question “What will you take with you from today?”, Danka answers with a smile: “So much that I don’t know if it will fit in our car. You can’t get this anywhere else”.
And no, it’s not about anything material, tangible, it’s not about promotional materials or equipment. This is a short story about people who love and live their work, about the sincere intentions of the Institute to truly be the key to the support that others need, to motivate and create – for today, for tomorrow, for all those who will come and whose lives they will at least moment to touch the result of the dedicated work of those people and that organization. In addition to all that, this is an important story about a partner organization that left Sarajevo driving a car full of motivation, desire and ideas to be help, support and a reason to make someone’s life different, better.
The Institute for Youth Development KULT has developed the concept of Job shadowing, which will provide civil society organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a new perspective of organizational development. This concept is most often used as a form of professional development and is used to study everyday activities, work, work environment, application of different methods and models of work in practice.
The visits of partner organizations to the Institute for Youth Development KULT proved to be a perfect opportunity for mutual motivation and learning. This is just one more reason to continue our visits and be supportive in strengthening organizational capacities with the goal of strengthened civil society organizations that will create opportunities for a more advanced community.
We would like to thank our guests today for their visit, kind words and motivation!
You can read more about the concept of Job shadowing HERE , and if you have additional questions, you can contact us via the e-mail address selma.sljivo@mladi.org .
Source: mladi.org
