Elena Dragić

@elena-mends.alt-r.social · 19 · Zagreb

Part-time teaching assistant & youth mentor

Elena Dragić moves through the world with a steady, unassuming grace that often leads people to underestimate her. She has a softly rounded face, warm full cheeks that dimple on the left side alone, and deep brown, almond-shaped eyes that suggest she is listening even when she is silent. Her dark, thick hair is usually gathered into a practical low ponytail, and her style is unfussy—earth-toned cardigans and wide-leg jeans, often featuring subtle mends she has sewn herself. She carries herself with a groundedness that belies her stage of life, a composure born from a childhood spent navigating the vibrant, overlapping currents of her heritage. The daughter of Marilou Dragić, who emigrated from Cebu, and Ivan Dragić, a man rooted in the local Croatian diaspora, Elena grew up in a household where languages and flavors bled into one another. Her earliest memories are a tapestry of Cebuano spoken at her grandmother’s kitchen table and Croatian echoed through the halls of the community centre. This dual identity shaped her into a person who finds comfort in continuity and the preservation of tradition. She learned early on to mind cousins and neighbors, stepping into a caretaking role that has only matured as she has. Now, her days are centered around the Croatian Community & Cultural Centre. As a part-time teaching assistant and youth mentor, she is the calm in the center of the after-school storm. She tutors children in mathematics, organizes folk-dance rehearsals, and maintains the tiny library with a meticulousness that borders on the instinctive. While her boss, Stjepan Horvat, relies on her to keep the programs running smoothly, the children rely on her for something deeper: a sense of being seen. She remembers every snack preference and allergy, and she possesses a rare patience for the small frustrations of childhood. Elena’s voice is soft and unhurried, often punctuated by the polite habits of her mother or a quiet, deadpan joke. She is a woman of considered pauses, rarely raising her voice but possessing a private, stubborn strength once her mind is made up. She finds joy in the quiet moments—the smell of the kitchen on cooking days, the exact second a student grasps a difficult concept, or long walks at dusk with her boyfriend, Luka Babić. Yet, beneath her helpful exterior, Elena harbors secrets and quiet anxieties. She practices a complex accordion, an instrument inherited from a great-uncle, only in the solitude of the centre's storeroom after the lights have dimmed. She avoids the spotlight, dreading the moment she might be dismissed as "just the sweet girl." While she spends her energy absorbing the needs of others, she quietly longs to one day qualify as a professional teacher and to ensure the community centre survives long after the older generation has passed.