What can you accomplish in 10 years? A first-grader, who sits at a school desk for the first time, will become a fully grown person with a wealth of knowledge in 10 years. They will absorb a heap of information, meet many people, and their hands will sift through mountains of books. Ten years will add to their height and weight, but it will take away some of their naivety. They will look at the world more understandingly. They will start losing illusions, but they will still have a child’s enthusiasm. After all, there is still so much to discover. So many people to meet, and so many opportunities not to be missed!
When that first-grader becomes a middle-aged person, the years will fly by much faster. A decade will feel like a compacted span of time, and as they get even older, a decade will pass by like a landscape viewed from a speeding train.
But during childhood and adolescence, 10 years are like ten lifetimes. Everything is new. Everything is important. Every day brings something extraordinary. New adventures, new faces, new challenges. There’s enough strength for everything. A young person is almost immortal, nothing seems impossible, everything can be overcome, and the whole world can be explored. It’s essential to show the world who will one day be its master.
In this way, a young organization, company, or society is similar to a young person. The first 10 years are the busiest, most adventurous, and most useful. The organization gains experience and develops with the people it encounters. It blossoms and matures like a young woman. During the first decade, it interacts with thousands of clients, and over 10 years, you get to know hundreds of sad and happier destinies, you encounter approaches you had no idea could exist in the beginning.
The years take a bit of your naivety, you realize that you can’t help everyone, that you can’t change the world just with will, money, or actions. The world truly remains unchanged, but you can improve the lives of your clients. You can put them back on their feet, pull them out of the trench, push them forward when they hesitate, advise them when they don’t know where to go, help them when they feel that the world has abandoned them, that they are alone, left to their own devices, and abandoned to their depression and sadness.
A young organization is somewhat like a young person – it has bright eyes and spreads joy around. Occasionally, it makes mistakes, messes things up here and there, but it’s pursuing its goal – to become a mature, responsible, and useful part of society.
And when I look back now, 10 years ago, at our nonprofit organization WOMEN FOR WOMEN, I think we’ve become just that. Over these 10 years, perhaps a few things didn’t work out as planned, we might have been naively idealistic at times, but we’ve done our share of work. For example, since 2013, thousands of children have received a small miracle every day thanks to us – a warm meal, even though their family budget had no money for it.
We found that problems often wear the same clothes and that what burdens people the most is a lack of information. The first book about what to do to manage your life (2015) turned out to be more effective than a wagonload of money. Single parents realized that their life stories weren’t a lost cause and that they could change, improve, break destructive bonds.
In 2018, with our clients, we realized that a safe home is an unparalleled kingdom. Life in a shelter cannot be called life; it’s more like subsisting. But to change it, so little is needed, just a deposit to secure entry into regular rental housing. By helping families in need with this deposit, we also transform the lives of their children, who no longer have to wander from place to place. They have their home where they can finally invite their friends and classmates. With a long-term home, they become a part of society to which they didn’t belong before.
Even later (2019-2020), during the COVID pandemic, we provided computers to children who would otherwise have been cut off from their classes and peers.
We have also helped and continue to help during the war in Ukraine (2022), and in the constant hustle and bustle, we have quietly completed the first 10 years of WOMEN FOR WOMEN’s existence.
As I look back now, thousands of our clients pass before my eyes, and dozens of our helpers, exceptionally willing and devoted individuals, without whom ideas would have remained just ideas. Together, we have changed the lives of many people and, without exaggeration, somewhat changed the whole world.
Therefore, I would like to thank everyone who has traveled this journey with me. For their help, trust, and cooperation. I firmly believe that in the next 10 years, we will achieve many useful things together. Unfortunately, the world has not become any better over these years; it has, if anything, changed for the worse. With that, there are more people, especially children, who desperately need help, and there aren’t many who can provide it. If we can, then we must.
Ivana Tykač,
