College education for 10 talented students in BiH

BOSANA FOUNDATION

Scholarship and Personal Development Program

Quarterly Report

October - December 2016

Executive Summary:

For our students, the last quarter of the calendar year also represents the beginning of new academic year. During the months of October and November students started classes and their new school year; they met new professors and started with a new material for this year. U.S. Embassy project was completed in Mostar, Kladanj and Tuzla and our students are pleased with the outcome. Also newest Bosana mentor visited out students in Sarajevo.

Students and Program Update:

December means that the end of fall semester is coming to an end. Many students already had their first midterms and are well into the second part of the midterms. In January they will start with their final exams.  

Last quarter we had five Bosana graduates, this quarter we have two additional graduates. Our student Matea defended her diploma paper this quarter. We also have three students who are ready for final oral exams and now are just waiting to set the date.  

New Bosana students accepted into our program are adjusting well; they have been volunteering and trying to use everything Bosana has to offer. This year we have a lot of students working on their professional development; most of them are taking language classes hoping to be more competitive once they are ready for demanding job market.

Highlights of the quarter:

• The Dean of Medicine at the University in Mostar as the best student of the year has selected our student from Mostar, Stipan for the second year in a row. Stipan had all straight A’s since he started his studies and we are all very proud of him.

• Five of our students that graduated in the past quarter have started their graduate studies.

• This November our new students Dzenana and Mediha represented Bosana Foundation at the Third International Sarajevo University Fair. Universities from all over the region send their representatives to such events where high school students have option to learn more about potential universities and about scholarships available to them.

US Embassy Project final stages:

“Social Entrepreneurship among BiH youth” is the first Bosana project that was done in collaboration with US Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aim of this project was to provide professional trainings through workshops, lectures and hand-on experience on topic of youth activism and social entrepreneurship to at least 60 beneficiaries ages 18-25 across both entities in BIH to empower them to become change makers in their own local communities.

Workshops and lectures were completed in 2015, projects were also realized, websites created and individual groups completed their tasks. This year students went back to complete the final stages of their projects and evaluate the impact their project had.

In final phase of fundraiser for “Egipatsko selo” students in Mostar collected warm clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, toys and sanitary products. Additional money donated during this event was used to buy food supplies for this particular home for children, since that is the most important item on their list.

New Donor updates:

We are happy to announce that Bosana’s new mentor visited our students in Sarajevo during the month of October. Annel met with Bosana’s President and few students studying in Sarajevo. He was able to learn first hand what it means to be a Bosana student and he already started mentoring one of our students.

BOSANA FOUNDATION

Scholarship and Personal Development Program

Quarterly Report

July-September 2016

Executive Summary:

This reporting period we are covering summer break for most of the Bosana students. Those that did not pass all of their exams had a pretty busy summer studying for October make up exams. During this slower than usual period, Bosana stuff however was kept busy. We accepted applications for new scholarship students and also were busy preparing for our student gathering we have each year to welcome new students in September.

Students and Program Update:

With the end of the summer, we are happy to officially report that 10 Bosana students have graduated this year. Some of them will seek employment while six students have decided that they will continue with their graduate studies that Bosana will also support financially.

We are also very excited to report that we have also accepted 11 new students for the upcoming 2016/17 school year as well as three students into our Professional Development program (they will not received financial support from Bosana but will have access to all other form of support).  

Highlights of the quarter:

• One of our students from Gorazde helped organize this year’s student gathering. These student gatherings are always organized in different parts of BIH and our students take part in helping us organize it. This time, 28 students were able to attend our gathering, including 8 new students who were just accepted this September. It was a beautiful weekend spent in the vicinity of Ruda Glava, a location from which you can see most of Bosnians mountaintops.

• Six of our graduate students will continue to obtain their Masters degrees. Bosana’s policy is that we continue to support them financially because in almost all of the cases, having a simple bachelors degree does not provide sufficient support for employment. This year, this is the largest number of graduate students that we have had and it has definitely put a large strain on our financials that we hope to overcome in the coming months.

• Our student from Mostar studying Medicine was awarded second time in a row as our best student and received a monetary award of approximately $300 dollars. Stipan has straight As a medical student, particularly, it deserves all kinds of praises.

• One of our students from Mostar was invited to be one of the main speakers at the Adriatic Youth Forum in Sarajevo. She was invited because two years ago she wrote a very impressive paper on the issue of youths’ lack of involvement and initiative in BIH and she was invited to speak on the issue.

• Two of Bosana students were selected among 22 other students from BIH to receive a Eurorail pass to travel for 20 days across Europe. Bosana also helped them financially and they were able to visit 10 countries and 12 cities. An experience of a lifetime.

• One of our students from Bihac who graduated this year from the University of Economics was selected among the lucky few for a paid internship at the local municipality. This is a significant achievement because her Masters degree requires of her to have a year of work experience in order to graduate college.

“Bosana students for Humanity” Project:

Bosana students continue to help their local communities every month. Every month they give portion of their scholarship and Bosana double matches the amount so they can help families in need. Each month students choose families in different cities.

In this quarter Bosana students decided to help one of our past graduate students who does not have any family or home to rebuild a house his family used to own.   Funds from months of June, July and August were all given to Edin to help him finance the rebuilding of his house so that soon he will have his own place to live. The house is very old and devastated; and Edin needs to rebuild most of the interior as well as the exterior. (plumbing, walls, fixtures etc.).

(picture of the house before and now).

For the month of September, our students decided to help two boys from two different families with school supplies in town of Bijeljina where one of our students lives. One boy lives with his father who is unemployed and only has occasional hourly jobs that are barely enough for food. Second boy lives with his mother, brother and sister and both were not able to buy school supplies.

Challenges:

This has been a very eventful quarter but we have no significant challenges to report.