Alumni Impact: Sports for Girls
Una, a participant in the Youth Leadership Program with Bosnia and Herzegovina, shares her experience creating a service project in her community.
Una with the students
Twice a year, FIUTS hosts groups of high school students from Bosnia and Herzegovina who are participating in a Youth Leadership Program. Upon returning to Bosnia, these students use the skills they learned in Seattle to develop and lead community service projects. Here's an update from one of the Spring 2013 program participants!
Hello! I'm Una Belko and I was a participant of Youth Leadership Program in Spring 2013. During my stay at USA I learned a lot about civic engagement, American culture and ways to help my community. My favorite part of the program was the project writing seminar. I knew since the beginning of the program that my project will be something about promoting girls' sport. After the project writing seminar, I knew what I needed to do to realize my ideas in just the right way.
I decided that I will do presentations about the importance of sports and recreation for girls at elementary school. There is only one sport club for girls at my town- volleyball club, and the conditions in club aren't really good- we don't have many members and it's difficult to find sponsors. I've played volleyball since I was 12, so I know lots about sports, health and sport clubs for girls at my town. My coach also helped me with some advice and I asked biology teacher at elementary school how to make the presentation more interesting and easy to understand. The principal at school said that these presentations are a really good idea because there aren't many girls at elementary school who play any sport and he gave me the permission to do the first one at the 6th year (12 years old). The date for the first presentation was set in November.
Students participating in the presentation
I was really excited before the presentation. My friend Lejla, who also was a participant of YLP, helped me with technics and she was taking photos, and it was easier for me because I knew I'm not alone with all these kids.
It's an understatement to say these little girls surprised me!! They had tons of questions and were very talkative and interested in the topic. They asked lots of questions about my volleyball club, other sports and they talked a lot about their hobbies and the way they spend their free time. Some of them were interested about basketball too, and luckily, Lejla who is a basketball coach for a younger group, could tell them something more about the club and the trainings.
I’m really happy with how the presentation went. The girls seemed interested in sports, not just volleyball, and some of them started training, even for a short time. I’m planning to do more presentations in the future, and I’m always looking for ways to help my club and finding sponsors. It’s not just about helping my club, it’s about giving a chance to girls to get healthy, more confident and to meet new people. After all, I met my best friend at volleyball and I want every girl to have a chance to meet someone special in that way.