“I took care of him, and he took care of me.” That’s what life was like for Leontina and her grandpa, who she started living with at age ten. Growing up in Prilep, Leontina’s early childhood was marked by tragic destabilization: the loss of her parents. In an attempt to provide her a sense of familiarity, her grandpa moved from Skopje to Prilep so Leontina can finish middle school there. Afterwards, both of them move to Skopje, where Leontina enrolls in the vocational high school – in the economics track. When she has to say goodbye to her grandfather, too, Leontina becomes part of the SOS Children’s village – an institution that connects kids with foster families. 

The UWC in Costa Rica has a long history of collaboration with SOS Children’s Villages across the world. Before joining the UWC movement, the school was known as Colegio Internacional SOS Hermann Gmeiner, named after the founder of SOS Children’s Villages. Gmeiner, an Austrian who had experienced the horrors of World War 2, believed every child needed a stable environment in which they can reach their potential. UWC Costa Rica, agreeing with Gmeiner’s vision and recognizing the resilience of kids from SOS Children’s Villages, allocates a limited number of scholarships to NCs who can identify and nominate successful candidates with an SOS background. 

The fact that Leontina had to grow up too early results in three traits that are evident even in a short conversation. 

The first: Leontina casually describes dealing with tasks virtually no one her age has to deal with. “I’ll have to head to Prilep – to wrap up some administrative things. You know when you go on vacation, but before you leave you clean up your house so it’s nice when you come back?” (In this case, vacation is two years of school in Costa Rica and cleaning up the house is dealing with a million documents in banks, registrars and public institutions because Leontina turned 18.)

The second: to deal with those tasks, Leontina knows how and where to ask for help. When she needed to communicate with the Ministry of Labor for remaining documents, Leontina wrote to the national Ombudsman’s office. They responded and helped her get in touch. When she needed documents for her UWC application, Leontina wrote to the administrators of the SOS Children’s Village, who helped her get a new passport. 

The third: people around her want Leontina to succeed, and they invest their time accordingly. Her foster family jokes that if she ever needs anything in Costa Rica, “it’s not a problem – they’ll fire up the car and make their way.” Her mentors in the Human Resources internship work with her to explore potential careers in the field, which helped her develop a new interest and gain skills. National Committee members exchanged a ton of emails with the College before her nomination was accepted. Everyone who knows her is excited to see what she will achieve. 

Leontina today has a ton of interests. She swims, she goes to singing classes, and she performs. She goes to the gym, she’s part of NGOs, and she participates in exchanges and workshops on social entrepreneurship. She’s tried modeling, and she has a 200+ day streak on Duolingo Spanish, so she’s ready when she arrives in Costa Rica. She’s collecting experiences. 

“I miss him,” says Leontina, describing her grandpa who had a keen sense of humor even in his late 80s. “I go through old albums. But it was fate – and you can’t escape fate.”

July, 2024
Bobo Stankovikj