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