Women Academics From Ghana

"I knew that even though we were surrounded by a large family, we had nobody."

"Respect is important and something that is very much needed in society, but has been constructed by some to mean submission and self-denial, especially in regard to young women."

"I have to fight for what I want, for what's mine."

"Not everyone who smiles with you wishes you well."

"If there was one thing I agreed with my mother on, it was that one could never be sure about a person’s intentions, no matter how kind that person seemed."

"A person who talks so freely about her own life will talk just as freely about yours."

"Please, put love aside and be practical. Love will not put food on the table; it won’t hold you at night."

"I use fiction to teach in my social science courses and I am always keen to explore the issues that I work on in my research."

"It takes strength to walk away from someone you love."

"Women form the majority of operators in the small business sector, but their educational levels and managerial experiences are lower than those of their male counterparts."

"Also growing up in the early 1980s, when Ghana experienced serious economic decline, I learned gratitude for what I have, judicious use of resources and the need to give back to society, especially the underserved. These tenets that I picked from my family’s value system have been part of me throughout my teen years up to today."

"Born to parents who are both educators, my siblings and I were surrounded by books and that inculcated in us an interest in reading, writing and learning very early. Growing up in a family of eight taught me the need for peaceful coexistence, free sharing of my gifts, caring for younger siblings and benefiting from the care of older siblings."

"Joy, pride and gratitude all in one pot. Its a litmus test to all my professional engagements and gives me the zeal to do more. This award is a huge endorsement of my scientific and professional endeavours. It is definitely going to further increase my visibility and offer more opportunities for growth and impact of my causes, including research on environmental contamination, mentorship and outreach."

"First of all, Ghana is where I feel most at home; I grew up here. Secondly, there are a lot of scientists in the global North and therefore the global South needs equally credible scientists to stay, work and help solve their peculiar problems which research can address. I also serve as a mentor and role model to younger people who aspire to be scientists in future. An ambition like that looks more achievable or real when your role model looks like you and speaks like you!"

"Personally, I am looking forward to finding collaborators to help fund my research, and also to continue in science diplomacy, outreach and mentorship. I also look forward to working in a Science Policy Space in order to contribute to research in the field and also report on my experiences gathered along the way."

"I will say the main difficulty is around funding, which is very limited. At my university, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, there is funding between USD2000 and 5000 to compete for annually and there is no national research fund, so most funded projects are supported by external donors."

"I wanted to experience new people and culture, and in Bergen I was in an environment where I had access to state-of-the-art equipment for my research. The other key benefits were that the programme was in English – and was fully funded. It was a great experience."

"I was always a curious child and used to ask a lot of questions about everything – from why birds sing and fly, to why it gets dark at night. I always wanted to understand how things came into existence. I was particularly active in science experiments in the primary school, and that led me to choose science for my secondary education and later university education. I guess it was a natural response to my curious mind and quest to know!"

"A natural response to my curious mind and quest to know."

"I’d travel to Jupiter in the far future – firstly because I love the sound of its name, secondly because of its massive nature (it could accommodate around 300 times Earth’s current population), and thirdly because it is beautiful. I see a future where science has discovered ways of adapting to life on Jupiter – as well as methods to travel there more quickly. That way I could take my summer vacation from my earthly home in Kumasi in Ghana to travel to Jupiter for sightseeing and relaxation..."

"Some think that all scientists in Africa do mediocre research or lack appropriate equipment. There is also a general lack of trust in data generated in Africa; I’ve witnessed this myself in the time taken to review manuscripts and the comments I’ve received when I was studying for my PhD in Europe versus the early years following my return to Africa. Now I’ve established credibility in the field, I don’t seem to encounter these biases as much."

"My greatest scientific inspiration is Marie Skłodowska Curie. She is the embodiment of both femininity and scientific excellence. Not only did she depart from the traditional women’s roles of her time, but she went on to become one of the world’s most renowned scientists. To date she remains the only person to have won a Nobel Prize in two academic disciplines – namely, physics and chemistry."

"I am striving to improve public knowledge on the dangers associated with pollution by toxic substances (heavy metals, aromatic hydrocarbon, and so on) by determining them in environmental samples and evaluating the exposure and risk associated with them."

"Don’t allow negative thoughts from yourself or others, your ethnicity, location, environment or gender be a limitation on what you can achieve."

"there is a need to have an alignment between the sense of identity of the leader and that of the followers, for leadership to achieve its goals."

"We don’t need to behave as if all is well when in actual fact we’re not too sure about where the money is going to come for sustainability so it is important in as much as we embrace it as a good policy that has to be supported."

"Tell the story you want to tell. It's a very simple message but it's really affected my writing in a positive way. I hadn't read any book on Ghana like His Only Wife so I couldn't look at anyone's trajectory of success and say ‘this person wrote a book like this so if I write it, I will have a similar response’. I just knew that this was the story I wanted to tell. You have to believe in the story and trust the book will find its readers and readers will find the book."

"While learning the local language children will get to know about etiquettes, politeness, speeches, taboo expressions, avoidance expressions and idioms. They will know these basic tenets of public speaking, all of which are embedded in the indigenous language."

"It has proven that if you learn your mother tongue you get to know the basic tenets of the Ghanaian culture which frowns on engaging in open insults or character assassination, something we see in our political space now."

"It is common to see some politicians, presenters and other dignitaries trading insults on air, forgetting that children are equally listening and might pick the indecent Twi Language spoken on air."

"A lot of people lacked the basic tenets of the indigenous language which teaches people not to engage in insults, especially on a public platform. That, had been the main cause of the phenomenon in the country."

"We have allowed the infiltration of alien cultures and that is destroying ours which frowns on insults. So children lack a deep appreciation of the local language, when to speak, how to speak it and the occasion to present it."

"They were only interested in passing derogatory remarks against their political opponents as though they were enemies."

"Because we have taken our language and culture for granted, parents don’t speak and teach much of their indigenous languages embedded in our culture with their children."

"It has become so obvious that if you can insult people very well, you are awarded a position when your government comes to power, and that is bad."

"Language was powerful and delicate — it can make and unmake a person, it can break a nation — it was language that led to the Rwandan genocide."

"Because we are failing to teach our children, a lot of them lack wisdom which leads to the lack of maturity among many of the youth and that translates into our politics."

"Politicians mostly speak their indigenous languages during campaigns. If you speak people’s language, they are able to easily identify or flow with you."

"We can start from somewhere by making Ghanaian languages compulsory subjects from the kindergarten (KG) to the senior high school (SHS) level."

"I urged the media not to give their platforms to politically exposed individuals to spew insults at their political opponents, a situation she said could lead to tensions in the country."

"It was everybody’s responsibility to guard against insulting comments by politicians during their campaigns."

"I was concerned with the analysis of word meanings and relations between them. All quotes in the English Language had to be translated to Twi to mean exactly what the quote means. Even if it is a terminology in English, you have to get the exact Akan word, not just nearest in meaning."

"I said I will also read news when I grow up but I will do it in Twi, and everybody in the living room burst out laughing. My dad asked me if I had ever seen anyone reading in Twi on radio or TV. I closed the chapter because indeed in those days, there were just a few Akan-speaking FM stations, unlike today."

"The first day I came on TV I didn’t inform my parents but they saw me and were all thrilled, and my dad called me and said I was indeed a go-getter."

"There are things that are known to be taboos but are mentioned anyhow on radio by some of these Twi presenters on both TV and radio."

"records of the military standard have not been completely told in light of the fact that individuals were occupied with working without archiving."

"I reiterated the need for the students to aim at becoming economically independent, especially women, before venturing into life-long commitments such as marriage."

"In the current dispensation that the University of Cape Coast is championing the entrepreneurship drive, students need to add value to themselves by gaining both hard and soft skills necessary to ensure their holistic moulding into responsible citizens."

"Universities give universal training for you to fit into different roles except for specific professions like medicine. You are being trained to fit into different positions and roles that may present themselves to you after school."

"Universities do not train students to fit into specific jobs but produce well-rounded critical thinkers who can assume different positions."