The 12th of May marked the start of a week�s work attachment with the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) for 9 students from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Students from various faculties were actively involved in the daily operations of the organization. This programme was jointly organized by Persatuan Bahasa Melayu (PBM) and the Muslim Society (MS) of NUS with the objective of nurturing young and able professionals who will be able to take on leading roles in the community. 

Of the 9 students, 3 were from the faculty of Science, 1 from Business Administration, 1 from Law and 4, including myself, from the Arts and Social Sciences. Indeed, the short stint with AMP was time well spent with plenty of opportunities to learn about how AMP functions and its valuable contributions to the Muslim community. 

All of us were warmly welcomed on the first day. A meeting was held in the Board Room where representatives from the various departments briefed us on their respective divisions. We were served morning coffee while watching a five-minute video presentation on the constitution of AMP. Following that, a short tour of the grounds was conducted by the friendly Human Resource Manager.

All of us were attached to different departments. There are essentially 8 departments functioning in AMP namely, Al Hijrah, Corporate Affairs, Education and Training, Fund Raising, Finance and Administration, Human Resource, Research and lastly the Training Centre. We were fortunate to be given the choice of departments to work with. I was with the Corporate Affairs department which deals with mediating core events, promotion of attractive programmes and informing the public of coming youth activities. This is effectively carried out through ad-vertisements in the papers like The Straits Times and Berita Harian. Other methods include the sending of official letters containing the intended messages as well as the fabrication of banners which are usually pinned up at strategic locations where the target crowd are. In short, it is about handling community relations via the media.

On the third day, we were given the golden opportunity to have a question-and-answer session with the Executive Director for Corporate Services Division, Mr. Ismail Ibrahim. It was a pleasant session where we shared our experiences throughout the first three working days. Mr. Ismail ended the session on a motivational and an indelible note: "When we are given a task, do it with passion and a focussed mind."

  The AMP staff is an amicable and helpful lot. Most of us were given hands-on training on what was required for a certain task to be carried out. For example, NurAzlin, a graduating Arts student who was attached to the Al Hijrah department, had the chance to go to Temasek Primary School to help counsel one of the students there. Sulika, a first-year Science student who was attached to the Fund Raising department, was involved in the actual planning of raising funds for the coming events that AMP will be carrying out. As for myself, I had the chance to collate data for advertisements on anything pertaining to AMP. Also, I was allowed to learn a thing or two from the other departments so as to see the bigger picture. It was no doubt an unforgettable encounter experience and I am very glad to say that I wouldn�t mind at all working in AMP during semester breaks.