(From left to right) In this article, Barbara Er and Amanda Thomas from Teach For Malaysia (TFM) share their experiences transitioning from corporate to advocacy
Inching towards my final year in university, countless thoughts have been keeping me up at night, plaguing me with anxiety. ‘What would my life be after graduation?’ I have always wanted my pathway to be as planned: graduate, get a decent-paying writing or editing job and stick with that job until retirement. To me, that is the safest option, away from the stigma of switching careers and being the subject of conversations amongst nosy relatives and society.
Perceptions changed when I had the chance to speak to Barbara Er and Amanda Thomas from Teach For Malaysia (TFM), a non-profit organisation aiming to tackle education inequity. Before walking down the advocacy road with TFM, both navigated through various roles in the corporate world.
Closing the corporate doors
As a certified chartered accountant graduate, Barbara started in the accounting field for three months before eventually putting a halt to that career.
“I did not enjoy it, so my father told me to quit while my mother was very upset because I spent so much money studying ACCA but eventually, I got their blessings to explore other careers,” she recounted.
Describing herself as a “people-person”, Barbara recalled her original ambition to be a double-pin concierge at some 5-star hotel, but her parents did not allow it
“I still found my way back, not into the hotel line, but talking and helping people. So I've always been in some form of student- or customer-facing role,” she said.
Barbara would proceed to venture into IT, holding a customer-interfacing job at a mobile application company before moving into hospitality, where she worked on the launch of F&B outlets in Prince Court Medical Centre, a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur. She eventually transitioned into education, where she worked at an international school.
“Both the healthcare and education experience mended together when I got an exclusive contract that allowed me to start my own company recruiting and sending students to study in the Republic of Ireland, predominantly for medicine and dentistry,” she said, adding that she had held on to the position for 10 years.
That was the very job that sparked her realisation on the importance of education.
“When I took over the business, our students were predominantly MARA- and JPA-sponsored students.
“With these highly sought-after scholarships to study overseas, family background was always a point of consideration back then, where students from less-privileged families are prioritised, so you see the pride when they graduate because they worked extremely hard to get what they want.
“They would text me ‘Miss B, I did it!’ So it brought a lot of joy,” she said with a smile.
Barbara stayed on the education pathway, this time working with a local private university as the head of marketing and student enrolment, marking her 20th year in the education field.
After five years of being in that space and working for a corporation for profit, she took a step back and questioned her purpose and how she was giving back to the community.
Even though she had some inroads in that job, Barbara felt unsatisfied staying in a corporate-for-profit institution in the field of education as she felt that she was not reaching the spaces of high-need communities with low affordability.
“I'm helping students by encouraging and working with them, but they are a very small minority, and to be honest, they are students who were given every opportunity, privilege and access to realise their true potential.
“They say it brings more efficient impact when you help those who are the closest to success, which to me translates to providing more opportunities to the T20s, but what about the bottom 40%?” she questioned.
Fueled by her frustrations, she tried to find alternative ways and means to support a wider range of students, which was when she came across TFM.
“I resonated with the vision, which is that one day all children in Malaysia would get to realise their true potential through quality education.
“I applied for a role within TFM’s second pillar, which is to develop existing leaders, but during the interview, they felt that I was better suited to recruit candidates into the flagship programme known as the Fellowship.
“So here I am now, as the Head of Talent Acquisition of TFM’s Fellowship Programme, which aims to nurture and introduce new leaders into the education system to accelerate change.” she said.
Barbara (centre) with the Fellowship team at the TFM office
Barbara (centre) speaking to undergraduates of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) at Career Fair
When asked about the transition process, a ‘NO, it was not a walk in the park!’ escaped her lips instantly, followed by laughter.
“TFM drives for social impact, and though we are still a functioning business organisation, the people working here, the partners and the stakeholders, all come together not for money, but because of a common vision and passion, which is providing solutions to education inequity in Malaysia.
“People are not with social impact organisations to become millionaires. That will never happen, so when people gather for selfless motivations, not driven by money, it's a very different environment.
“When you are reliant on the generosity of corporate organisations as well as individual donors, everything you do has to be intentional. You have to be systematic and make use of data to measure and prove the impact you create, so the transition wasn’t easy.
“I had to change the corporate way of doing things and be intentional, reflective and collaborative, which is not easy, but this is the reason why I wanted to join the movement,” she said, “and it had worked out well for me in fulfilling my purpose.”
Going with the flow
Describing her previous work experience as colourful, Amanda first ventured into the corporate space, conducting events as well as research and analysis for a year.
"It was a good transition job between leaving university and entering the real world," she said.
She would then join Astro as an associate content producer under the education department, working on Tutor TV and TVIQ and assisting in the production of the final season of Oh My English, before moving on to being a digital content producer in Astro radio, producing content for all the English radio stations.
As an International Relations major with a minor in Communications, Amanda was later recruited by the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a digital counter-terrorism analyst, helping the government to understand terrorist messaging and online radicalisation narratives in the digital space, particularly on most commonly used social media platforms.
“I did that for three years and I loved it. There were many stories to tell from my time working in the government sector,” she recalled
Her journey in the political field continued when she was recruited to join the Malaysian Reform Initiative (MARI) as a programme development officer by the United States Department of Aid (USAID).
As the programme development officer, Amanda looked at issues of governance, corruption and women's rights issues
“One of the most exciting things was working with Undi18. As a young person, it was an interesting time and being able to work with the team was exciting.
“I also worked on issues that were very much related to and driven by young people and women,” she added.
At the end of the MARI programme, Amanda joined the German Embassy as a political officer to the Ambassador for a year, but she did not feel like she was in the nation-building space.
Recommended to try out at TFM, Amanda eventually joined the team, where she would take up the role as Head of Adult Mobilisation under the pillar of Community Mobilisation; a position with no predecessors.
Nevertheless, she took up the challenge, having always been the first person in most of the roles she had undertaken.
“There were many challenges and there still are, but it’s been a fun ride.
“I loved my time at MARI with USAID, and I wanted to be as connected to that sort of work and space that I was in, and TFM has given me that opportunity,” she said.
Under Community Mobilisation, Amanda and her team look at communities beyond schools. The team also works closely with funders, giving them the opportunity to do fieldwork aside from providing funding.
The communities they look at include universities, corporate mentors, community leaders and B40 parents.
“We are a department that does many different programmes, mainly structured around building and developing student leaders.
“We look at how these programmes will benefit the students by placing them at the centre, and then look at the people around them and how they are contributing to the development of these students,” she said, highlighting that they go into *PPR communities.
Similar to Barbara, Amanda expressed the challenges in transitioning across jobs and industries.
“Over here, as Barbara mentioned, it's a social impact organisation which has its own ways of doing things and functionalities.
“It was very different from what I was used to. It took a while for me to adapt to this new environment. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary and a great learning journey, ” she explained.
Her strong belief in contributing towards nation-building drives her to work in the advocacy space.
“Like Barbara said, you're not going to be a millionaire working in a nonprofit space. I was not going to be a millionaire working for the government as well. But what was I giving back to society?
“If I spend like 90% of the time really just being frustrated, that 10% needs to balance it all off, like it needs to be worth it.
“I feel like working in a place like TFM, the 10% makes the 90% worth it, which is why I am here,” she stated.
Having been with TFM for seven months and 1.5 years respectively, Barbara and Amanda both aspire for the day when TFM's mission is fulfilled, and a balance is achieved in the education sector.
“I was told that our hope should be that one day, TFM will not exist anymore. There will not be a need for us to exist in the system as the problem has been solved. Our job is done, we can tutup kedai and tackle other problems,” said Amanda.
“I hope a better balance is achieved in terms of education equity and that the people who are not directly in the challenge of inequity will champion and carry those on their shoulders while allowing them to level the plane field,” said Barbara.
Reflecting on our conversations, I realised that life is unpredictable and that switching careers or industries is not the end of the world. Envision it as a train ride. We move at our own pace and disembark at different places, experience different things, get back on the train, and move forward to our next destination. And who knows, maybe you and I will find our true passion and purpose in this world, just like Barbara and Amanda.
*PPR (Projek Perumahan Malaysia) is an initiative by the Malaysian government to provide income earners under the B40 category to find a home and eradicate squatter areas throughout the nation.
By
Amanda Lee,
Journalist,
Charisma Movement 23/24
Comments