The lonely path to success.

Çlirim Sheremeti
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read

In this second part, I’ll be focusing more on the development of 4-H in Kosovo and the challenges my team and I had to overcome. Once again, this is my experience and personal POV, and I hope some of you find it helpful for your own endeavors.

When I had that lightbulb moment in Finland and realized that this might work in Kosovo, I started contacting friends who I thought might be interested in helping me build 4-H back home. When I came back in January, with the help of 4 other wonderful volunteers (Diellza Malazogu, Drin Çela, Aurora Hyseni, and Arbër Gjoni) and the help of Liridon Maliqi, the director of ‘Model’ Primary School, we opened our first club. We had very little idea of what we wanted to do at the time. Yes, we had some resources from 4-H in Finland and some people we could contact, but other than that we had to mold a Finnish program into one that would work in Kosovo. We hustled our asses off trying to find and create programs and think of ways to implement these programs through clubs (as for context: school clubs are pretty rare in Kosovo. The ones that exist function very unconsistently, so we had to tackle this too). Surprisingly, the kids were liking the club a lot. They had a place to meet every week and discuss and learn things with peers that they needed to but weren’t, such as leadership, teamwork, confidence, developing projects, etc. Here, they were the leaders. They were the ones who chose what they want to learn and they were doing it at the pace that suited them the most. Seeing that this was working pretty well, 1 month later we opened the second club in ‘Ismail Qemaili’ Primary School (also in Prishtina) with the support of its great chemistry professor Valon Hoxha.

It’s worth mentioning here that that’s the number of people that supported my endeavor in the beginning: 6. We didn’t have any funding or organizational support, and we didn’t know all the ‘right people’, but we had a ton of persistence and a future that we wanted to change for the better. And it amazes me how many people think that someone needs to validate their chance to succeed first, and only then should they start putting in the work in order to become truly successful. I don’t think it works that way. In fact, I think it’s the complete opposite. You start off with almost no one knowing who you are or what you do. No one cares about your work and the impact you want to make. Sorry, but that’s the harsh truth. So YOU gotta be the one who cares as much as possible and makes all the sacrifices; it is YOUR dream that you’re chasing, after all. People start recognizing your hard work and success after you’ve dealt with and beaten most of the challenges that average people can’t (in our case, opening clubs, creating programs, and getting people involved). You’ve gotta get yourself in that state of mind where you’re completely focused on what you want to get and how to get there, and silence all the useless noise that the world likes making. One of the best feelings in the world is showing others wrong, especially when those people are usually right about these kind of things. Do it for yourself first and the things that matter to you, but also to show the ones who don’t believe in you wrong. Siphon their negative energy and turn it into the persistence that you need to win! But don’t forget the people who helped you along the way. Most people will ignore you and not want to have to do anything with you when you’re still small and just starting. But the ones that help you are the ones that saw something in you and supported your success (in my case, the 6 people I mentioned above). Of course, it was your character, your work ethic, persistence, and patience that got you here. But it’s the support of those people that believed in you and presented you to opportunities that you were not aware of that got you here, and the humbleness and gratefulness that will help you stay on top! It was this kind of work and persistence that got me and the team to start growing 4-H here so rapidly.

We continued having weekly meetings with both of our clubs, always thinking of new things to do and how to improve. At the end of the school year we did an evaluation form with them and most said that the 4-H club and spirit, although young, had helped them in becoming more confident, gaining leadership skills, and learning how to better work in a team. 7 months after we started and now we’re talking with people from 4 different cities in Kosovo on expanding 4-H there too. They all have their own ideas of how to implement the program, and of course they will be heard. We shouldn’t go in and tell them how to change their community, the place they’ve grown in and know better than anyone else. What we require of them is that they stay true to the 4-H principles and their programs are research-based, but the rest of the leadership is up to them. We are extremely grateful that we’ve got resources from all 4-H countries on all aspects of youth development and programs, and a great network of people of all skillsets to contact whenever we might need help of any kind. And last but not least, we got letters of support from important and influential people like the Ambassador of Kosovo in Canada for the work that we are doing and the impact we intend to do, and people are contacting us left and right, asking how they can get involved in helping us. Only AFTER we beat the challenges which most people fail to even acknowledge did we start getting the support and help that everyone wants to have from the beginning.

If you liked this article and/or it helped in any way, press the little heart ❤️ so other people might see it as well! Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I’ll see you on the third (and last) part of this story!

Çlirim Sheremeti

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Probably the most curious 18-year old you’ll ever meet. Sharing my journey and writing about things I care, including youth, success, and life advice!