BELLSPIRATION CLUB - Luka Radičević, Serbia/Slovenia: Don’t let the injustice you’ll experience along the way wear you down! (Part 4/4)

1) Can you share with us what you have learned from your life experience so far, and what you consider very important for a peaceful, happy and successful life?

Last year has been quite turbulent and challenged me in ways I could not have foreseen. The transition year, as I like to refer to it, has taught me that volunteering, activism, work, and achieving success are nice, but not so much if the price for that is health and happiness. That is why, after almost 10 years of being engaged in youth activism, I have decided to devote some time to myself and my needs, however selfish it might have seemed to me, and it is actually not at all. That does not mean I will never volunteer again in my life, but that I will do so when I feel both mentally and physically capable enough for it. That is the experience I would like to share with others, hoping it will help someone set priorities and work toward them. 

2) What is your inspirational message for all of us?

I would use a cliché like “sky is the limit”, but we have heard that enough times already. Fight for what you believe in and don’t let the injustice you’ll experience along the way wear you down. Many would say this is just extremely stubborn, but the only way for me to give up on something that is right and that I would like to achieve with my entire heart is not to be amongst the living anymore. This probably isn’t the ideal way to go, but take from it what you need at this very moment. 

3) Bellspiration club ends the fourth promotional month. What do you think about this club after a month of promotion? What do you think about Bellspiration in general and its goal of promoting the work of young people?

Although this “month” of promotion prolonged itself in my case (which is merely on me), I am grateful and feel humbled for the experience of working with Belma and I can only say it is a pity we live in a world that definitely lacks Bellspiration-like initiatives. I strongly advocate that young people in general and the things they do deserve much more attention, as well as that good ideas and practices, should be rewarded. Thank you, Bellspiration, for choosing me and for everything you do for young and successful people around the world. 

4) If you want to say something else and share, you can write here :)

Finally, I would like to share one rather unpleasant experience, but one that I consider important for my future, and which pretty much left the biggest mark in the last year of my life. Namely, at the university, we experienced great injustice while attempting to pass the last exam and graduate. I am using “we” given the fact that this happened to a third of my generation at the faculty. Not to make the story too long - after a couple of disagreements and misunderstandings with the professor in question, who has a history of problems with her students, we turned to the vice dean for student affairs in the hope of solving the problem. Not only did we not succeed, but after that, the relationship with the professor further deteriorated. After requestion two committee exams, which only one student passed, and learning that according to the faculty regulation, the above-mentioned professor has to be in every committee that is formed for her course, we soon realized that all the procedures that are actually supposed to protect students were there only to just exist and that they are merely a formality. Academia is a place where reputation is highly valued, and hand in hand with it goes ego (of course, not in everyone’s case) - that's why the autonomy professors have, in my opinion, is too big. In most cases, this is not a problem, since those professors are human as well, but if there is a problem, no one or nothing can help you - regardless of whether it happens in Serbia, Slovenia, Germany or the United States. As someone who holds fairness as one of the highest values, I started to lose my health because of this unfortunate experience, and I would like nothing like this to happen to anyone. This is one of the biggest injustices that I have encountered in my life, and I wanted to share it with others simply because I think that such things should be known publicly. I wish I could say this experience taught me that justice will not always be served, but I already knew that. What I've learned is that the right, prescribed way to solve a problem isn't always the appropriate one for a given situation - at least until the system starts working as it should in the first place.

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CONTACT LUKA:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lukatalks/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/lukatalks98 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/lukaradicevic Academia: https://uni-lj.academia.edu/lukaradicevic

Previous parts of Luka's interview:

Interview PART 1/4: https://bellspiration.blogspot.com/2021/05/bellspiration-club-luka-radicevic.html

Interview PART 2/4: https://bellspiration.blogspot.com/2021/06/bellspiration-club-luka-radicevic_1.html

Interview PART 3/4: https://bellspiration.blogspot.com/2021/06/bellspiration-club-luka-radicevic_9.html

A few interesting things about Luka::

https://niskevesti.rs/12400-luka-radicevic-nis-ima-perspektivu/
https://niskevesti.rs/niski-talenti-luka-radicevic-spaja-ljubljanu-i-nis/
https://www.festivalnauke.org/start/evropa-u-malom/slovenija/muzika-ceslja-novcica-i-balona

BELLSPIRATION:
Website: https://bellspiration.blogspot.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bellspiration/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bellspiration