Elvira Dushku was still in elementary school in Pristina, Kosovo when her older brother invited her to watch him and his friends play basketball. No girls were on the court, so at first she waited patiently on the sidelines. But, after two or three times of sitting out, she couldn’t take it anymore and put herself in the game. “I told my brother, ‘Why can’t I play with the boys, too?’” Elvira says.

The moment she stepped onto the basketball court, Elvira knew she had found her second home. One day, a former Yugoslavian national basketball team player, whose daughter attended the same school as Elvira, spotted her talent and asked if she was interested in joining the local women’s club. By the age of 14, she was playing at the highest level. But, then came the war in Kosovo, and Elvira was separated from playing the sport she loved for nearly two years.

After the war ended, a former men’s coach approached Elvira on a mission to form a new women’s club, Univerziteti Priština. She joined the team and played competitively until 2007, winning numerous best player awards and national championships before she suffered a serious knee injury and retired. “For me, playing basketball is about passion,” Elvira says. “This sport made me achieve everything I have in my life.”

After she retired from playing in 2007, Elvira began a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from AAB College in Pristina, and was hired as a reporter for the Kosova Sot newspaper. Around the same time, her basketball club asked her to return as its women’s sports coordinator. In her new role, the disparities between men’s and women’s sport in Kosovo became even more apparent to Elvira. The club—one of the country’s largest—dedicated most its budget to the men’s team, and did not invest in its women’s team. Elvira had to go to the government, speak with the director of sports in Pristina, and make pitches for funding from small sponsors.

In 2015, Elvira was hired by the Kosovo Basketball Federation and then promoted to its acting secretary general. She is one of the country’s few female sports executives. “I want to be a voice and role model in my country,” Elvira says. “I’ve heard parents say , ‘Elvira, my girl wants to be like you.’ This can continue to the other sports federations, where all the front offices are men. It can start with basketball.”