As the FQ Education starts to take deep roots in Sierra Leone, the country is beginning to sparkle again on the global stage and to inspire confidence in the youths studying back home, infusing them with courage to rekindle the “Athens of West Africa”.
On Saturday 19/03/2022 a distinct group of distinguished people met in the ExCel Centre in London. This was a meeting of deservingly selected scholars from all around the world who had gathered to honour the ‘Class of 2021 Chevening students’ and to get to know each other in a networking event that included workshops and topical speeches.
During their one-year postgraduate studies in the UK, Chevening Scholars will build valuable networks and acquire professional and leadership skills that they will use to create positive reforms to improve their countries, on their return.
The speakers at this year’s event included Vicky Ford, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and Carole Mundell, Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy at the University of Bath.
The Chevening is a fully funded UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) scholarship that is highly coveted and extremely competitive. For the 2021 programme there were 64,408 applications globally out of which only 1,633 were successful. These were selected from 139 Countries and were accepted into 115 UK universities.
In Sierra Leone there were 250 applicants, with 21 shortlisted for interview and 4 candidates were eventually successful.
The 2021-2022 Chevening Scholars from Sierra Leone include Dr Abdul Jalloh, MSc Global Mental Health studying at University of Glasgow Scotland; Davephine Ayesatta Tholley, MSc Engineering and Business Management, University of Sussex Brighton; Harold Valentine Mac-Saidu, MSc Applied Data Science & Statistics, University of Exeter, Devon and Dr Temitayo Labor MSc Tropical and Infectious Diseases, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Liverpool.
Chevening Scholarships and Fellowship awards are so highly competitive that to be selected is proof of personal potential and a mark of prestige. The fact that only 2-3% are usually eventually selected from the initial worldwide applicants gives this a dimension of national achievement and we should be very proud of our bright and brilliant awardees for flying our national flag on a stage that truly matters!
Abdulai Braima
information.attache@uk.slhc.gov.sl
