The Bosnian student program has grown considerably since the fall of 1995. There are now thirteen high school students in the greater Philadelphia area, with another in Lomalinga, California, one scheduled to arrive in Farmington, Massachusetts, and possible scholarships in Illinois, Ohio and Oregon. The Society of Friends has been particularly generous, with all the area high schools offering at least one scholarship to a Bosnian student, and Wilmington Friends and Abington Friends Schools accomodating two students on full scholarships. We have also received scholarships for students at Germantown Academy, La Salle Prep, The Country Day School of the Sacred Heart and Shipley School.
Haverford, Rosemont and Chestnut Hill Colleges have each given scholarships to two Bosnian students. There are also students at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, West Chester, Imaculata, The School of Pharmacy, St. JosephÕs and Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences.
We have obtained two tuition-free scholarships at Temple University for Graduate Studies, two at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown and one at La Salle College. It is hoped that all these students will be here by August. ItÕs estimated that it costs between $5000 and $7000 a year to keep a student in everything from books to medical insurance. In some cases, the majority of the financial support is provided by the host family, in others there is a community or congregation that works with the family to provide the financial needs.
Many of us who watched these students as they arrive and make the very difficult adjustments in culture, language and academic expectations are filled with respect for the students' determination and commitment to their studies. Most are near the top of their class in spite of the fact that some of them arrived in the middle of the school year.
Our students come from all over Bosnia. A number are from Sarajevo and Tuzla; others are from Bihac, Banja Luka, Gorazde, Prijedor and Stolac. Most have student visas, a few have refugee status. For all, the trauma of the war has been profound. Most of them have relatives who were killed or injured and they all worry deeply about the future of their country and the family members left behind. The work of the Community of Bosnia is helped immeasurabley by the studentsÕ contributions. We have been interviewed on "Morning Edition," KYW TV3 News, Radio Times (WHYY-FM), and Channel 6 News and for numerous newspaper articles including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chestnut Hill Local (see page 3) and Main Line papers.
There have been speaking engagements at Friends Meetings, churches and other groups. When students share personal experiences, the effect is powerful; it helps to put a human face on the Bosnian tragedy and stimulates people to get involved. This involvement includes taking political initiative, helping to obtain scholarships, becoming a host family or making contributions of computers, in-kind services or financial support. All are welcome.
"Bosnian student finds hope at Chestnut Hill College"
By Ritchenya A. Shepherd Partially reprinted, with permission, from an article that originally appeared in the The Chestnut Hill Local
Twenty-year-old Amra Sabic, a student at Chestnut Hill College, says the siege that devestated her native city of Bihac, Bosnia, lasted for more than 1100 days. Although many of us think of that amount of time in terms of years--a little more than three--Amra measures the siege in days, perhaps because she had to survive each one before she would see another.
Through a network of Philadelphia area volunteers, Amra has come to the United States to study. Chestnut Hill College has extended her a four-year tuition scholarship. She lives with David Kairys, Antje Mattheus and their two children, in Mt. Airy. Her dear friend, Dijana Cehic is also here studying at CHC, on a four-year tuition sholarship.
As she counts her blessings, Amra says that "it's very, very hard" to assimilate into normal college life after having survived a four-year war. "I canÕt believe I survived some things."
"We were under the siege by the Serbians all the time," says Amra, who was 16 years old when the war began. Bihac is a city in the northeast corner of Bosnia, near the border of Croatia, as she shows me, drawing a map of her homeland. During the long siege, Bihac was attacked on the other side by Bosnian Serbs, she says.
They were without electricity for three years, says Amra. Her family lived without heat or running water, and food prices were prohibitively high. Sugar cost as much as $700 for a kilogram (slightly more than 2 lbs.), she said. (The small bags of sugar at the grocery store are 5-lb. bags.) No one cared about gold, silver or other peace-time treasures; they cared about finding the necessities for survival, she says. She estimates that, in addition to the thousands who were killed, 150,000 people left Bihac as the conditions became too severe to withstand.
AmraÕs CHC adviser, Sister Anita Louise Bruno, has helped her to adjust to her very different life here. "She's really great, very understanding," says Amra. Her host family also has been very good about being there for her, she says, when she feels the need to talk. However, she also feels "like I have to be tough, a strong person," in order to take advantage of the opportuunity sheÕs been given.
"I wanted this education for a few reasons," she says. Going to college in Bosnia would have meant travelling to Sarajevo, which Amra was afraid to do, despite current peace efforts, because she was afraid of the possibility of another seige. She has no relatives or friends in Sarajevo, to help her in the event of a seige. Even now, many people still do not have electricity, and food prices remain high. "I was wondering how would I survive?" she says.
Amra also saw coming to the U.S. to receive an education as a vital personal challenge. As a survivor, she understands the importance of gaining an education to better help her country rebuild itself. "I think for Bosnians itÕs very important...people don't have anything right now...everything's destroyed," she said.
Amra would like to improve her English, and learn about business, so that she can help her father, who has begun an import/export business. "I have a lot of ideas...but who knows what is going to happen?"
Although she has only been attending CHC for three weeks, already she likes it. Hesitantly, she notes that she was also surprised--pleasantly--at how welcome she was, even though she was Muslim. Having grown up in a society where there was institutional discrimination against Muslims even before the war, she expected people to treat her differently, once they found out who she was, she says.
For David Kairys and family, the decision of whether to help Amra continue her studies by bringing her into their home took about four days, he said. After considering practicalities, whether the children--Marah, 15, and Hannah, 11--would receive enough attention, what the living arrangements would be, what problems living with a person who had survived a war might bring, the family decided that the opportunity to learn about a new culture and help somone in need outweighed any hesitations.
Antje Mattheus, who is German, works on diversity issues, and has studied the Holocaust. She wanted her children to reach beyond the isolation of a typical middle-class American family to gain new insights and experiences, including learning about the realities of war, she said. In addition, "itÕs what we would want other people in the world to do if we were in trouble," said David, who is Jewish, and teaches constitutional law and civil rights at Temple School of Law. After only three weeks in the Mattheus-Kairys household, Amra seems already to fit right in, laughing and joking with the family about how Hannah helps her with the many difficult new tasks she faces, such as extracting soda from a vending machine. "We were really lucky with Amra," says Mattheus.
Having Amra in the family turns out not to be so much of a sacrifice, said Marah. In speaking with Amra, she has learned "that stuff like what was happening in Bosnia could happen anywhere. A lot of people think itÕs a civil war...it's not a civil war, it's a genocide," Marah said.
Amra says that many of her relatives and friends were killed. People died so quickly because shells destroy people instantly, she says. You would be somewhere one day, and somebody would be killed there the next. In talking with people, she would often forget that somone she had mentioned in the present tense had died.
The fatality numbers changed from day to day. "For the world, these people were numbers...for us [each one of them was] a person...your friend...your relative." It was a big disappointnemt, Amra says, when there wasn't a strong world reaction against what was happening to the Bosnian Muslims. "We thought they didnÕt care."
Amra says she Ōthought the same thing people think in the U.S., 'Could war happen to me in Bosnia? Never!' " But now she believes it can happen anywhere, she says.
MAKING MUSIC FOR BOSNIA
Just when COB didn't know how they were going to keep the progam growing to meet the needs of the many new students, Mady Savit joined COB and organized a benefit concert at Friends Central School, featuring internationally-known musician John McCutcheon.
Michael Sells described the concert as "a special moment for all of us. McCutcheon is both a superb musician in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, and a remarkable artist in sensing and developing energy within the audience."
Mady did a stellar job organizing the event, enlisting major involvement from communities throughout the Philadelphia area, and attaining sponsorships from local businesses. A vital contribution was made by David Pincus, a member of COBÕs board of advisers, who took care of the cost of the concert.
After the concert, Bosnian students Amra Sabic, Azra Kurtovic and others spoke movingly of their experiences; Deborah Cooper reported on her April visit to Bosnia. Sells reports, "These experiences were heartbreaking to hear, but in hearing them we could come together to begin the process of healing. ...this was a moment of exhiliration and left us with a feeling of peace."
Mady's arrangement of an interview of Sells, students Vanja Filipovic and Amina Kurtovic, with public radio talk show host Marty Moss-Coane helped to spread word of the foundation and the concert.
Vanja and Sells also spoke during intermission at the Tabor Lutheran Church during an annual German music festival and the concert raised over $1,000 for the student program. The festival was attended primarily by the community of German emigrants who came to the US before WW II.