My Amal Journey
Phone: Tring Tring….. Trin g Tring
Picked the call….
Unknown Caller: Hello! Is this Ibtasam?
Sleeping Ibtasam: Yes it is. Who is this on call?
Unknown Caller: Ibtasam, I am Umey Aimen, your Program Manager of Amal Fellowship……….
The U-Turn of my life
I was sleeping in the evening after being exhausted by university projects and my phone rang. I picked up the call of an unknown number and what I heard next made me wake up.
My journey at Amal started when I received a call from my Program Manager on 16th March 2021 at 4:40 PM. I was still into that feeling of being selected for this fellowship and in just an eye blink, it is about to end. Actually I am wrong here, the journey I had started will never end, because Amal is not just a fellowship, for me it is Amal Family Batch 181. It’s a family where I have found lots of friends, not just friends, but some brothers and sisters as well.
Amal Fellowship is a blend of Love and Learning where you interact with lots of people and learn. It’s an amazing journey with lots of opportunities to learn and gain experience by interacting with different people. My Amal journey was unique and amazing where I had an experience of interacting with different people.
Starting from my application form to the graduation form, I have experienced a lot of new things in my journey. The energetic style of Sir Awais Farooq, the smiling face of Sir Asfandyar, and the professional attitude of Mam Sahar Ghalib always boost up my interest towards learning new things in the online courses. The timely scheduled PW by my Program Associate Ma’am Namra and the constructive feedback of my Program Manager Ma’am Umey Aimen always encouraged me to put extra effort into my tasks. Everything was well structured and linked together, starting from the first online course till the last one; starting from the first PW till the last task of Mega Project; starting from the first session till the last one; everything was unique and well designed. Each and everything that Amal delivered was helpful and I am grateful to be a part of this fellowship because it helped me groom myself professionally and acquire new skills.
The concept of Khudi, Amal, Kaam kaam aur kaam and Aik or aik gyarah were not new for me, but the terms itself were quite interesting. I was kind of a person who always tried to work in his own comfort zone but the concept of getting out of my comfort zone entirely changed my personality. I used to prefer working alone because I was not comfortable working in a team. But after working in different projects with different people changed my perception and now I am more comfortable to work in a team. I had a fixed mindset but the helpful concept of growth mindset made me a lifelong learner. The blend of gratitude and business writing tools polished my thank you emails. I have a lot to share about this beautiful journey as I have learned a lot from the PASSENGER series.
The most favorite thing that was a bit new for me was “Leadership Without Authority”. I did not know that I have this trait as I have been practicing this at my university. In the beginning of my journey, I was not practicing this at all but after that course, I decided that I will be using this whenever I will find some opportunity. I started practicing this in different projects either they were in breakout rooms or in the circle meetings, I always step forward to take the responsibility. It helped me not only polishing my leadership skills, but also made me interact with everyone because when you are leading some group with or without authority or taking some responsibility, you have to keep everyone engaged in that. The same thing I am practicing in my Mega Project as I am not the circle leader but I always took responsibility for the things I know I can handle.
Last but not the least, I loved the session when my batch fellows shared emotional stories about their life. I got emotional at that time when people shared the hardships they had faced in their life to gain whatever they have right now. I was somewhere linking their stories with my own life and I shared my own story then. I am not a serious guy as I always try to share some fun stories of my life but in that session, I shared a story that was a bit emotional and was showing the other side of me.
Well not going to make the end of this blog sad, that is why now I am going to talk about the appreciation notes. I really admire all those comments that my fellows shared about me. It was amazing while reading all those things that my batch fellows wrote about me.
Moreover, I would like to thank my facilitators Ma’am Namra and Ma’am Umey Aimen who helped us understand all those new concepts. Thanks for being there and we will always keep the same as a family.
