From Belgrade to Geneva: Help Me Build a Fairer World

I believe that the ability to think clearly, speak confidently, and be heard is not a privilege, it should be a right. For the past ten years, that belief has shaped everything I do.

I am Teodora, a debate coach and educator from Belgrade. I have spent over a decade teaching critical thinking and communication skills to young people across Serbia, many of them from communities where their voices were rarely taken seriously. I watched students who started out hesitant and unsure become people who could walk into any room and hold their ground. That transformation never gets old. But over time, I began to see the limits of what discourse alone can do. Changing how people talk is not enough if the structures around them stay the same.

So I started looking for a way to go deeper.

In 2017, I won the World University Debating Championship, the largest academic debate competition in the world. I mention it not to impress you, but because it is the clearest shorthand I have for what I bring to any room: the ability to analyze complex problems from multiple angles, to argue with both rigor and empathy, and to never stop asking whether the dominant view is actually the right one.

I have just been accepted to the Master of Science in Innovation, Human Development and Sustainability at the University of Geneva, one of the most respected programs of its kind, hosted in the heart of international Geneva, steps away from the UN and hundreds of organizations working on exactly the issues I care about: equity, inclusion, and the conditions that allow people to actually flourish. My specialization will be in Sustainable Human Development, with a particular focus on how policy, education, and community-based initiatives can create fairer opportunities, especially for people in societies undergoing difficult transitions.

This is the next step I have been building toward for years. The problem is a simple and honest one: I am a freelance educator in Serbia. I make enough to get by, but not enough to save, and Geneva is one of the most expensive cities in Europe. The full two-year program requires proof of approximately €27,000 in financial resources, money I do not have, but money that would allow me to focus entirely on becoming the kind of person who can actually move the needle on the things we both know matter.

I am not asking you to fund a gap year. I am asking you to help send someone who has already spent a decade doing the work, for free, for the love of it, to the place where she can turn that work into something structural and lasting.

If you can give something, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you can share this with even one person who might care, that matters just as much.