20th, March, 2021, early Saturday morning, alarm rang at 8 30 am. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, put on some decent clothing and prepared a rather early breakfast for a Saturday morning. I checked my headphones, twice, and then left for my office. It was different from other Saturdays I spent at the office. Both nervousness and excitement was in the air. I logged in to my email account and at 9 25 am, entered the zoom meeting via link.
Adjusted my phone on my desk and began with the session. Two smiling faces greeted and welcomed us to an almost 3 month long journey of learning, growth and improvement. We began with self introduction, which led to the discovery of me being the only Karachiite, with, thankfully, my Program manager (PM) being from Karachi too.
So the session started with a discussion on the Online course 1 and it proceeded with a debate on the four principles of Amal academy which are Amal, Khudi, 1+1=11 and Kam Kam Kam. I participated in the debate and was favoring the Khudi side.
At the end of the week, on Sunday, we were assigned our next PW and online course and then this just became a routine for each week.
Next week into the session, and a familiar face greeted us again; with more excitement and enthusiasm than any of the Amal Fellows. She has a smile that brightens up the room. She is someone who’ll encourage and motivate you, even if you only spoke a word. She, like us, was also an Amal fellow once and is now our PA, Iqra.
Also, because we, Amal fellows, were not particular about timings, therefore, just second week into the session and we had our first Ted talk with a very profound, learned and motivational personality from Amal, who is none other than our PM, Zaki!
Sessions after sessions went by, submissions over submission were made, days turned into months and we finally neared the end of the fellowship, with lots of love, inspiration, friends and acquaintances, lots and lots of guidance and mentorship, and of course a bulk load of learnings that ‘ll help us in both our personal and professional life.
