Turning a four-year-old’s dreams into a 21-year-old’s reality
|Nisvet Skejic represented Bosnia & Herzegovina at the Homeless World Cup in Mexico 2018. Image: Anita Milas
“Though we gave our best from the beginning, at first we had a struggle. Then when we figured things out and took our chances, it started going well.”
21-year-old Nisvet Skejic from Bosnia & Herzegovina may have been reflecting on his team’s opening match at this year’s tournament, but could just as easily have been outlining the challenges he has already faced in life.
Nisvet’s route to the Zocalo—both literally and figuratively—has been something of a journey.
“My mother and father were from Srebrenica,” he says, “and in 1995, after the war, they became refugees and were sent to the part of Bosnia that was under the control of the Bosnian government. Then in 1996, only a few months after we became refugees, I was born. We stayed in that temporary place, which was Serbian, then in 2002 my mother died. My father married again. We are all still looked on as refugees.”
A ray of light appeared into Nisvet’s life in the shape of a shiny round ball, whose arrival he remembers vividly.
“It was after the war in Bosnia, when the aid came to the refugee camp. Some sports equipment arrived one day. Some footballs. Then we were able to kick a ball around on the street all the time. I loved it! I was four years old and it was our way of life in that time. Our escape. So I feel I have played football since the beginning of my life!”
Encountering many barriers to gain any kind of education and subsequent struggles to get any work has meant that football has been Nisvet’s saviour—and he grabbed the opportunity to become involved in his country’s street football programme.
“Apart from this football programme, I am unemployed. I have tried and struggled to get work—occasionally I have been able to work sometimes on a building site or in security. I am trying very hard to find work but I have not had enough education.
|It was a long journey to the Homeless World Cup in Mexico for Nisvet Skejic and his team. Image: Anita Milas
“But I am used to struggling in life and living around people who are also in a bad situation.”
The opportunity to take part in this year’s tournament—players have just once chance to compete in the Homeless World Cup—posed Nisvet with both a dream and a nightmare situation, however.
“My father is very sick, but I have huge support from my family—we are very poor, but they support me with their hearts. It was very important for me that my father and stepmother encouraged me to come to this tournament, to believe in myself. Although he is very ill and I thought I should stay, he told me I had to come and take this opportunity.”
And it’s an opportunity he is loving and living by the minute.
“Because of my situation I have never had the chance to visit anywhere in Bosnia, and this football programme has made my life perspective bigger,” he says. “I didn’t know that the world was this big before coming to this tournament!
“We travelled for 30 hours—first by road to Budapest, then to Paris, then to Mexico City. For our team it was a huge, huge journey. I didn’t have a passport before this and I had to go to Belgrade for visas.
“Already this whole experience and being on this journey has made me feel I now have more courage. I will start to study English from now on too because I want to be able to tell my story from my own mouth. I am just 21 so I have time to make my life better.”
Lining up alongside his countrymen on the pitch today has turned the four-year-old’s dreams into a 21-year-old’s reality.
“I felt very proud when the anthem was played. For the first time in my life I am playing in this big tournament in front of all these people. I have come from playing in the street and on a small village space to all this!
“When I saw my flag on the big screen and heard my national anthem, my heart was very proud and I felt like I had already achieved something.
“Football is the way to reach my goals because I am quite good and I feel like a star when I am on the pitch. I love the sport and I know how to play so it gives me confidence. Being at this tournament is making me play to my best now.”
So aside from learning English, are there other goals Nisvet will take away from the back of the net?
“I will try to find a job and a good employer who will believe in me because now this tournament has made me feel that I am worth something, that I am a human being again. And I will keep playing football, of course!”
International Forum of Solidarity EMMAUS is our partner in Bosnia & Herzegovina, find out more about how they’re supporting people who are homeless and socially isolated.
Words: Isobel Irvine
Image: Anita Milas