Klika organizes and hosts 4 events to honor women under its 8 March Campaign Power To Empower

One of Klika’s long-term goals is to actively participate in shaping the local community by collaborating with and supporting different local organizations, governmental bodies, formal and informal educational institutions, and the company has taken many steps to take a proactive role in contributing to the local community.

As a company with an inclusive and equal opportunity culture, Klika is also a strong advocate for women’s rights. That’s why the month of March is traditionally a special month in Klika, as the company launches a campaign each year to celebrate women and raise awareness in honor of the International Women’s Day.

This year, the campaign’s motto was Power to Empower, and besides dinner and gifts for female employees, Klika organized several events, which centered around promoting opportunities for younger generations of girls within the IT industry, educational activities, as well as promoting successful female activists in our local community and raising awareness about women’s rights in our society. 

March 9, 2020 - Klika female employees talk about their career path and professional development in Klika presenting different opportunities within the IT industry 

Klika organized two events, one in its Sarajevo hub and one in the Banja Luka hub, inviting high school and university students, where they could hear more about the different career paths within the IT industry from the ladies from Klika. 

In the Sarajevo hub, we had Data Engineer Azra Čehaja, CDM Azra Kahrović, , and Senior Android Engineer Elza Kalač, share their career paths in Klika, giving girls the opportunity to learn all about the different paths within the IT industry, telling them more about career choices and where their personal education and professional choices took them.

Our guests were female students from different schools and faculties, including the First Gymnasium, the Second Gymnasium, the Third Gymnasium, the High School of Electrical Engineering, International Burch University, and attendees from Nahla – the Center for Education and Research.  

Our Career Path presentation was an opportunity for high school and university students to learn more about the different career paths that the IT industry offers. The message we tried to convey is that each career path is different for each one of us, so it is important to recognize opportunities and use them in the best possible way.

This is what one of our presenters, Azra Kahrović, Klika’s CDM, had to say about the event: 

In the Banja Luka hub, Klika QA Engineer Marina Novaković and Backend Developer Tijana Mijatović were the ones telling their stories about their professional development to the many students that joined the event from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Banja Luka. 

Klika’s QA Engineer, Marina Novaković, shared with us what she considers the biggest takeaway, not just for the young women who attended, but also all the young people:

I would like to say to all the young people who are at the beginning of their career to believe and invest in themselves, and above all, to be persistent. In that way, they will open many doors, maybe even unexpected ones. They should not lose courage if things don’t go the way they expected, and they should be aware of the many options they have and always keep the big picture in mind, and in the end, be the “owners” of their own choices.

March 10, 2022 - Klika non-tech female employees teach about communication skills

The following day, we organized an event + workshop with a focus that extended beyond IT. The topic was Leadership and Communication that was prepared and presented by our CSR Officer Aida Brdar in Sarajevo. The emphasis was on communication skills in leadership positions, including an interactive workshop which revolved around prominent female role models in different fields, stretching from politics and business to sports and activism.

We asked Aida, Klika’s CSR Officer, what’s the biggest value for younger generations of girls in the context of the workshop and event, and here is what she said:

It was great to be able to give an opportunity to the participants and attendees to acquire knowledge about leadership competencies and to help them improve their communication skills through practical and applicable methods.

In Banja Luka, Olja Haneš Rudić, our HR Generalist, talked about Assertive Communication with a focus on empowering women to fight for their rights through assertive communication whether it’s in their professional or personal life. Olja said:

Our goal was to educate women to ask for what they deserve in an adequate way, and one part of the presentation was also specifically focused on how to say no to requests that are not reasonable or moral.

Besides the guests from the above-mentioned schools and faculties, we also invited a couple of our Klika Scholarship recipients to join in and share with us some valuable information regarding women and certain issues women face. Our scholarship recipient Angelina Dulić from the Faculty of Medicine at UNBL joined Olja in the Banja Luka hub and presented some valuable insights on: How stress is impacting our health and what methods she personally uses to neutralize negative effects of stress. In Sarajevo, the Klika scholarship recipient Selma Škripić, a student from the Faculty of Law at UNSA, familiarized us with the topic: Our rights and how to recognize when they are jeopardized. Both student presenters did a great job, giving us useful tips and tricks on how to cope with these issues we face in our daily lives.

March 11, 2022 - Klika Inhouse Panel: Discussion about the future of the workplace in Klika and in general

On Friday, we organized an inhouse panel for all Klika employees where we discussed the topic: Are we on the right path to be a workplace of the future in the sense of diversity and opportunities?

The panel was moderated by Klika’s CSR, Aida Brdar, and the panelists were Klika cofounders Samir Eljazović and Maja Mameledžija, Head of Marketing Latifa Imamović and Head of HR Darjan Kišić . All attendees were welcome to share their thoughts, insights, and what steps they think are important for the company to take.

The panelists highlighted the importance of accepting and approaching people as a whole, not just as employees, but as wholesome persons, stressing how important the human aspect is in the workplace, and how we can move forward as an equal opportunity employer that actively supports women’s rights and diversity.   

March 17, 2022- Panel Discussion at Klika Sarajevo Hub: Our Power to Empower

We concluded our Women’s International Day campaign with a panel discussion titled Our Power To Empower. The event was open to the public and we invited remarkable women as speakers who are already doing their share and empowering other women in our community. The panel host was Klika’s Creative Strategist Hatidža Hadžimehmedović. 

The guests were:

Elmaja Bavčić, OSCE Mission BiH, Head of Gender and Youth Unit

aja Gasal-Vražalica, Director of the Academy for Women

Adnana Pidro, Youth Magazine Karike, producer and host of the show "Ovo ću samo tebi reći"

Maja Mameledžija, CDO and Cofounder of Klika

The discussion was very insightful with a focus on how we can all empower women, what women can do to encourage other women to take an active role in our society, whether it is in politics, business, media, etc., and how we can all raise awareness about the important steps necessary to take to provide women with equal opportunities in all fields and professions.

When asked where they find the strenght to empower and if we all have the power to empower, Maja Gasal-Vražalica, Director of the Academy for Women, who established the Academy for Women to primarily promote political literacy among the youth and women shared the following with us:  

My strenght to empower first came with my political engagement in 2013 with the establishment of a political party, which I joined, because I personally desired to be able to say to myself or my child that I tried something, that I did not just observe sitting in front of the TV and let the negativity prevail towards those we usually see on TV, because the question is, what do we do against it. It's a fact that even if I left politics, little can be done without politics, politics is everywhere, even tonight, the selection of guests and topics is in a way a political decision. I think that all of us lack political education and I am someone who had joined politics for the reason of activism and to give my contribution.

Talking about the IT industry and what we can do coming from a privileged position as an equal opportunity company, and how we can contribute to our society, Klika’s cofounder and CDO Maja Mameledžija, stated:  

I am glad to use the privilege to be here and talk about how we as a company want to change and contribute to our society and break through those glass ceilings by creating hierarchical positions, as well as creating opportunities like these to hear about other people’s perspectives that are not part of our micro-environment. When we talk about IT as a work environment in BiH, it enjoys certain privileges, which is often not the case when we look at our broader community. That’s why we try to open ourselves up to society and our broader community with small steps like these and raise awareness and contribute in a way.

Answering the question how important it is for women to be publicly presented in our society, Adnana Pidro, who traveled the world for several years before moving back to BiH and establishing the Youth Magazine Karike, primarily to give a voice - a channel to women and the youth, said the following:

It is important, especially for the younger girls, who need female role models. We have many girls who often do not have female role models at home, so it is important that we have women in politics, business, the media, etc., present in the public they can look up to.

We also had the opportunity to hear from long-time and passionate activist for women’s rights and gender equality, Elmaja Bavčić, Head of Gender and Youth Unit at OSCE, who reflected on all the unprivileged, whose stories often stay in the background:

What’s important here is that we often speak from a position of our individual privilege and we understand gender equality from our own point of view, which can be from a very privileged position, for example, a person living in Sarajevo, attending university in Sarajevo and coming from a family that supports that kind of education, while we often forget the other side of the story, and many unprivileged stories don’t get through to us and that’s where I come in as an activist. Activism is first of all my passion, and then my job, and I speak about what the obstacles are our society faces either as men or women and in what ways we can raise awareness and work on it.

The panel discussion touched on many topics concerning women and how they are perceived as employees, politicians and as activists and what challenges they face living in our society and what we can do to further advocate for a better future for women.