Our little means a world to someone
How many times in our lives have we had a chance to hear and witness the proverb ‘Our little bit means a world to someone'? In this story, that ‘little bit’ is manifested through the association of volunteer Belma with her younger sister. Belma Cutura is a successful fourth-year student of the special pedagogy study program of the Pedagogy Department of Philosophical Faculty of the University of Sarajevo and a volunteer for Muharem Berbic Foundation, which implements the Older brother, older sister program this year as well.
Belma has been associating with her younger sister only since March this year, but as they say, it is like they have known each other their whole lives. Their introduction, as well as their first association, was in Pionirska Dolina where they have, as they say, ‘clicked at once, descant and enjoyed it even though it rained’.
To the question of where do they go to meet, they gave me the answer that they agree upon the location before each meetup where they will go next. To be more precise, the girl is the one that always has interesting suggestions with which Belma gladly complies. At the same time, she is showing the girl how important agreement is for everything in life, and teaching her how to become independent to a certain degree, and how to take a part of the responsibility on herself with going to the wanted location, considering that girl is taking up the role of a ‘guide’. Besides that, thanks to collective efforts and commitment to make their associations educational and interesting at the same time, the girl has successfully acquired grammar rules, traffic behavior, and etiquette, and she is also developing friendliness, creativity as well as freer interaction by playing board games. Belma gets special pleasure from the fact that the girl has really found the ‘safe heaven’ in her, because trust is never scarce between them, as well as from talks about feelings and the honest wish for the meetings to continue.
As the most interesting meeting, the girl is mentioning the common activity for all the older and younger brothers and sisters which took place at the zoo "Pionirska dolina". During the competition which contained, among other activities, the feeding of goats, taking pictures next to the lion cage, imitating the duck, etc. the girl wanted to give up but thanks to the encouragement of her older sister Belma, she managed to continue competing and won at the end. In their words, they try to use their time together, which lasts a whole day, the best way possible, so they go to the cinema, for a cake, to the Yellow Bastion, enjoy the walks or just simply go somewhere in nature and play some board games.
Belma’s motivation for taking the role of older sister was a desire to, after the bad happenings caused by COVID-19, experience how it actually is to work with children, to devote your time to them, to be part of their growing up, and to have a positive influence on their present and future. By helping the girl, Belma is also helping herself to meet and visit something new in town, to change her everyday life, and to acquire new skills and develop old ones. She especially mentions how participation in the program greatly helped her in better organizing her time and money, in adopting a different lifestyle, and at the same time keeping in with her own limitations. But the most important thing is that it helped her improve relations with children because it is an immense responsibility to associate with a child considering that you have to give it your full attention at all times.
In the end, I asked Belma to tell me what importance she sees in this kind of involvement, to which she gave me the answer: ‘We are always thinking that much is needed to change the world and do something good, but in fact, we just need our goodwill and desire, and a bit of free time to use it in a right way with someone to whom our little bit means a world.
Volunteer Amila Ibrahimovic
