Decisions During Disaster

hello everyone

before we start all of this i would like

to ask you

to close your eyes

imagine yourself as a young child

running through the park imagine the

beautiful blue sky

over you and imagine how the sun

is chasing you you can even feel the

heat

on your skin and believe me you feel the

light of the sun

in your soul and i would like to ask you

to open your eyes

breathe in and breathe out

and give yourself a huge smile then you

are breathing

we will talk about that in a second but

i just want to let you know

isn’t it amazing what our brain is able

to do

if we just feed it with some positivity

we can change everything

you see when people ask me to come here

and talk to you

i was very hesitant i’m definitely not a

star

and i’m also not famous so what could i

offer you

that you would listen to me

so i remembered i have a nice story to

say

and this story might be inspirational

i was born in an olympic city

in 1984 the whole world

met together in sarajevo to celebrate

winter olympics different cultures

different backgrounds all people around

the world coming together to celebrate

one

sports you would say

how amazing it is to experience

something like

that although i was just a little girl i

could experience the excitement and the

joy of my parents

they felt i could feel what’s happening

in my community

amazing things

and then just six

years later the horrible 90s came

the horrible 90s brought

dirty war to yugoslavia

you see when i was just only 10 years

old

i spent lots of time locked down

in a cellar with no electricity no water

no internet and no online classes

well my parents did not see any

improvement there

so they decided to go they decided to

leave they had a hope

and they wanted to leave the country

they wanted to save

my brothers and my life

unfortunately they were not very

successful saving both lives

and i will not go in all the details how

horrible it is

to lose someone your brother your son

or anyone who you love today i’m going

to focus on that one life that was saved

which is mine so we packed our stuff and

we left bosnia

went to croatia and you know as a

refugee you never know where you end up

croatia was bombed during that time as

well so you keep on moving

the same like we all do in our lives

right

we left croatia went to slovenia austria

and suddenly

we’re coming to berlin boom

there were lights everywhere

can you imagine how happy i was that

that little girl

is saved but i have to tell you one

thing

as a refugee or even an immigrant

you don’t go to the parts of the city

where is light

you’re usually put in a very difficult

neighborhood

you’re pushed you’re usually put

somewhere

where is lots of poverty lots of

problems

homeless people old buildings

one thing my neighborhood had was

lots of basketball courts

well after a while i learned german

i started playing basketball that’s the

only thing that my city offered

and i fell in love with the world i have

created

i adored people coming to the basketball

courts

simply just to play sometimes they would

even

change their sneakers for just a ball

because they wanted to play

people again from all around the world

most probably with their own packages

coming to this basketball court

just to play you see

all of these experiences shaped my life

and made me who i am today now i’m

standing here in front of you

in abu dhabi as a high school teacher

even a basketball coach and even a small

business owner

imagine i created a small brand which

should connect people all around the

world

soul beat embodies everything i am

diversity love and kindness

everything which you can imagine what

could help our communities to come

together

and understand each other

and i know we all have our dark days

and i know there are challenging ways

to success but there are few things

what we have to learn the first thing is

that we have to learn to shift

our minds into positivity we have

to believe we should have hope

imagine hope gives so many people a

better life

why not yours second thing

and i always talk about that be present

be

in the moment get to know people around

you

get to know what you love and get to

know yourself

and the third thing is action

take action because believe me action

speaks louder than words

it will guide you through your whole

life

don’t pressure your staff yourself one

step

at a time well

now that my life is shaped and i am who

i am

i can tell you that i am a happy person

there is no excuses of being not kind

and accepting of each other we all can

do it

i could do it with all my passion and

all the strength i got from my community

why wouldn’t you be the one who can do

that as well

now i’m asking you again please close

your eyes

and think about that beautiful child

running

in that park with a huge smile on its

face

and now open your eyes and please tell

me

isn’t the ball in our court thank you so

much

you