English language and literature student Arnela Sejtanic has learnt the hard way that education has the power to transform lives. In 1992, when she was just 14, a war which was to last four years broke out across her home of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"I was supposed to be playing with my school friends and Barbie Dolls . . . but I was not," says the 20-year-old. "I was thinking will my father survive? Are they going to rape me? Are they going to kill me?"
More than two years after the Dayton agreement, the struggle to return to normal life in post-war Bosnia continues. One legacy of the conflict has been an increased desire by young people to complete third-level education.
Sejtanic and 13 other Bosnian students are being helped in this goal by Cradle, the Irish charity which has set up a student sponsor programme to cover the costs of university materials, food and accommodation in the region.
From September this year, the charity began making a monthly donation of about £60 to each student. Aged between 20 and 24 they are from the three ethnic groups - Muslim, Croat and Serb. Between them they are studying teaching, economics, philosophy, criminology, civil engineering and languages.
The programme also provides an opportunity for those studying teacher training to gain work experience in a Cradle sponsored schools project next summer.
"For those who managed to survive the war, education is one of the only ways to escape a life of abject poverty and hardship they suffer every day," says Cradle volunteer Dubliner Jadzia Kaminska, now resident in Mostar. Since it was founded in 1993, the charity has contributed in excess of £1m worth of humanitarian aid and support to the people of Mostar and surrounding areas.
In a letter to Cradle last August, Sejtanic described what this support meant to students like her. "After the war it took time for the situation to settle down," she wrote. " . . for the schools and universities to be built. But young people needed and wanted education so they were studying in awful conditions, some of them even walking 10 kilometres to go to the university - or the basement which had replaced the building.
"Because of that I think any kind of help to the brave young people in this country, to our students, is more than welcome."
When the war began Sujtanic and her family were expelled from their home in Stolac because they were Muslim. They were taken by soldiers to another town but forced to move from there one year later. Her father was imprisoned.
During the war she walked for two hours to school every day. Currently living outside Mostar, she gained top marks in her class enabling her to take up two university places, studying Bosnian literature in Mostar and English in Sarajevo.
"War makes you feel older than you are," says Sujtanic, who works part-time as an interpreter when not studying. "It forces you to grow up . . a normal 20-year-old thinks only of having fun. My main aim is to earn money, finish university with good grades, get a job, support my family," she says on the phone from Mostar.
She also hopes her studies will provide her with an opportunity to achieve her ambitions: "I want to travel, I dream about working in a tourist agency as a guide and I will use every chance I get."
The money and support provided by Cradle and other agencies around the world for education projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina will go some way to helping her and thousands of other students realise their dreams.
While she is incalculably grateful for this help, Arnela Sjtanic is not looking for pity. "There are worse stories than mine," she says. "I thank God my family all survived. Now I just want to be a complete person."
If you would like to participate in a Friends of Cradle project, phone the organisation at (01) 679 5242 or write to Cradle Ltd, 14 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.
