Dela writes on her facebook page:
Today, the 2020 Batch of Gates Cambridge Scholars were announced, and I am one of them. Seventy-seven women and men from thirty countries across the globe. 8% of whom are PhD candidates and, among them 2 Ghanaians.
Starting in October, I will be pursuing a PhD in Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge. I am the first Ghanaian woman – Ewe too – to become a Gates Cambridge Scholar as a PhD candidate.
The Gates Cambridge scholarship boasts of a community of about 1700 exceptional brains from more than 100 countries in the world. Throughout the history of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, there is only one Ghanaian woman who had the opportunity to join the program.
This breakthrough is the more reason why my success is for all of us. It is worth celebrating because it is the beginning and continuation of the many glass ceilings that Ghanaian women will continue to shatter.
Instinctively, I rushed to look at the profiles of my colleagues (yours ever is the very first name on the website – find the link in the comment section) when I receive the email. Then, I noticed something… During a program called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” on Netflix, former President Barrack Obama, who was hosted, asked the host, David Letterman, if he realized that there is an element of luck in their success stories. That luck President Obama asked Letterman about is what I saw as I read the profiles of the other Gates Cambridge Scholars. They are truly the best of the best. Yale, Harvard, Pennsylvania – these are the schools I saw as I glanced through the profiles. I kept wondering how the heck did I get through the door? Amazing, right?
My point is that achieving this critical milestone has nothing to do with being smart or better than others. I know many fellow girls (and boys) who were far more intelligent than me, yet circumstances didn’t make the same opportunities available to them as they did to me.
I hope my journey inspires many more girls to fight even harder for their “impossible” dreams. I also hope my research in Cambridge will help create a more gender-equal society in Ghana and beyond in the near future.
Wish me luck. Let’s go get dem!