Every UWC student begins their story with how they found out. Because regardless of how much we try to do online promotion (and we really do try!), the thing that gets the job done most often is word of mouth – organic, unplanned.

This story begins with two neighbors in Mlechen, real locals, chatting about the things they think about the most: their kids. The first neighbor mentions her nephew is headed to Singapore; her friend listens and prepares a neighborly response.

Turns out that the nephew ends up headed to Thailand, and the listening neighbor conveys everything to her own niece – which begins Dina’s UWC story.

I say “her UWC story” because this actually isn’t Dina’s first time being part of the UWC experience. Last summer, she participated in a UWC Short Course in Germany, which inspired her to try and continue her education at a UWC.

The first thing I noticed about Dina was her maturity – and her extraordinary empathy. From the moment she joined the Zoom Dina was so smiley that she made me forget about everything else that day, and had me completely present and focused on what she was saying.

She smiles the most when she talks about communities, about relationships with other people. “I learned a lot from the Short course. We covered a bunch of sustainability topics, but the biggest lesson was how quickly you can grow close to someone,” she told me.

Throughout those three weeks, she became such good friends with some of the other participants that she actually called me from Greece, where she was visiting a friend from the Short Course. After each anecdote, it became even clearer how community-building comes naturally to her.  

She spoke with love about everyone and everything she mentioned – the story about the neighbors in Mlechen, her pets, her friends, even her subjects.

When I asked her what she’ll miss the most, she told me that saying goodbye to her three cats and a dog will be one of the hardest parts. She loves animals – and she volunteers at the Happy Shelter in Skopje. She can’t wait to see some of the animals in Tanzania, either.

She spends her free time watching documentaries. Instead of getting into recommendations, she told me: “I like listening to people talking about topics they know well – it makes a lot of sense when everything is one connected whole.”

One such “connected whole” is the trio of Macedonian girls in Tanzania – Dina, Olja, and Emira. She’s excited about the opportunity to speak Macedonian and share any culture shock.

As far as her subjects go, she’s confident she wants to focus on the humanities. She’ll definitely take English language and literature, global politics, and history – and, as we realized that was the same subject package I took, we delved deep into the specifics about how they’re all related.

In essence, Dina is a person of connections. Connecting with others – with friends from the Short Course, with animals, across subjects, across her life today and what she wants to bring to Tanzania.  “I know I gave the application my all, and it was a massive weight off my chest when I got the call. It makes going to Tanzania seem easy in comparison!”

If there’s one thing I can predict, it’s that Dina will bring her empathy and warmth to Tanzania, and she’ll become an irreplaceable part of the community at UWC East Africa – in her words, part of a connected whole. 
 

July 2023,
Marija Janeva