Do I really Belong at the Amal Academy?
Being a LUMS Graduate, when I was applying for Amal, I was told that the career prep fellowship wasn't for me and I wouldn't learn much from it.
However, I felt that we should never let opinions hinder our growth and we should always be a part of new experiences, in the hope that it may lead us to doors that open up to beautiful destinations. Therefore, I applied to Amal Fellowship and truly hoped to be selected.
Finally, the fateful email came and I was selected. However, the question of whether opting the fellowship was correct and whether did I really belong here, kept me at a certain level of uneasiness.
On the 18th of July 2020, our first-class took place and Mr Usman Ahmed and Ms Mishal Zahid joined us as facilitators for our batch. The class was full of faces all over Pakistan and I could read almost all of their faces and it almost felt like a place where we could just be us and no one would judge us. On that day, a bit of my uneasiness went down.
Then just like a fleeting moment, one month passed us by and our batch was given the gargantuan task of collaborating as a team and raise funds for the Edhi Foundation. The reason I stated above that it was an arduous task was because we only had 2 weeks to execute the event.
In those 2 weeks, we had to do over 10 meetings amongst the batch, make different modes of inter batch communication, devise a strategy for raising funds and do our best to help the people of Pakistan. For me, these two weeks were like heaven as everyone in my batch was an angel, and they all had in them how important our little efforts were for aiding the people affected by the floods in Karachi.
As we say that efforts always pay off, our batch raised over PKR 150000 for the Edhi Foundation work in Karachi! This was a dream come true for me.
This event further reduced my uneasiness and I started feeling right at home. It was truly an amazing feeling to call the virtual zoom classroom of Amal Academy my home because I felt safe there and it was heavenly.
Well as we all know happy times go past very quickly, another month at Amal Academy was over and we were in our final month of the fellowship. Here I would like to quote the fact that the friendships I have built with the fellows at Batch 162 are something that I will cherish for a lifetime and keep them close to my heart.
Now, I remember the names of every single person in my batch and they all are beautiful souls, with stories of their own, who all want to succeed in life and I promise to be there for them. The faces of the people in my batch truly got rid of all the uneasiness I initially had on joining the fellowship and I felt right at home. Therefore, for me, it was not just the project works, the Edhi foundation project or even the Mega Project work but the little, cute and honest conversations I had with the beautiful people of Batch 162, were the best part of my fellowship and they have impacted me greatly. Special mentions for Hafsa Qamar, who is my ever amazing accountability partner, Sabina, Ayesha, Tehseen, who were my circle mates at Batch 162.
Ultimately, this gave me a new realization in life to cherish human beings, to cherish the small magical moments of our life and being there for those who need us, which is what really Amal is doing, I wish to employ these values in my life as well.
This is, however, the start of my story and I sincerely look forward to more magical journeys like that of Amal in the future.
#IdobelongatAmal#AmalisHome#Amalislove
