How did Anita become Vlasta’s superheroine?
Similar energies, desires and interests brought together Anita Šimić from the Network of Active Communities Tuzla and Vlasta Marković from the Association “Prijeđajice” Tuzla.
Anita was Vlasta’s superheroine, the first person to solve dilemmas and what is most important to a young man in order to achieve his goals – daily support. Throughout the entire process, Vlasta had the opportunity to turn to Anita at any moment for everything she needed.
” We worked a lot on my individual development, considering that I recently took over a larger team, so we worked on my leadership skills, delegating tasks, and organizing my time. So, I left everything I used to do to others, and when I left it, other people got the opportunity to grow and were given a certain responsibility, the responsibility to run their own programs. Strengthening my leadership skills is actually a benefit for our organization ,” says Vlasta.
During this process, Vlasta organized a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the peace project, where young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro were to be gathered. Before she entered this process, she had an idea of what it could look like. However, in consultation with her mentor, her idea grew and took on a completely new dimension.
” She motivated me to do something big, much bigger than I had imagined. What was most significant to me was the moment in my event preparation when I no longer knew where I was starting or where I was ending. In all of this, it was very important to me that I had a person I could ask for help from, who was accessible to me, and she was truly my “wind at my back “. Thanks to her and her support, the event went perfectly, and today I have much more confidence to take over the organization. Sometimes I even think that we had moments when we supported each other ,” says Vlasta.
What does the mentoring process bring?
Anita says that she really enjoyed this second cycle of mentoring and that she had a special connection with her mentee.
” In this mentoring approach, we have to fully include ourselves – both humanity and friendship and an open heart, and I really tried to offer that. Vlasta reciprocated everything, so I believe that we were a very successful mentoring couple. She was the one who, in a way, successfully managed this process with “the more you ask, the more you get “. She was eager for knowledge and support from me as an older and more experienced colleague, and I tried my best to provide that ,” says Anita.
Vlasta believes that she has changed the way she thinks about herself and her abilities a lot: ” I now consider myself a true professional in my job, and not the “child” that most of my colleagues viewed me as until recently, because I started very young with activism and participation in the work of the organization .”
By empowering her mentee, Anita is sure that Tuzla will also get a stronger organization “Prijateljica”, which Vlasta will soon take over and become the manager. Therefore, he believes that the whole concept of mentoring makes even more sense than it might have been imagined at the beginning. He believes that the most important thing in the mentor-mentee relationship is trust and that everything develops on it, that the complete process expands the field of action for both mentors and mentees, but he also states that it is necessary not to let each other down, not to underestimate or even overestimate each other.
” Definitely, strengthening us as individuals is very important for the strength of the organization ,” Anita concludes this story, proud that she once again had the opportunity to share her knowledge, be supportive and an important part of a young person’s career path.
The series of stories about mentoring was created as a result of the implementation of the Mentoring Program in Civil Society, which is an integral part of USAID/LWCDA activities. By introducing this program, the Institute for Youth Development KULT has rounded off the support it provides to civil society organizations through strengthening organizational capacities and performances, as well as personal capacities of representatives of these organizations.
Source: mladi.org
