“It has given me passion and courage”
Final-year student Bethel talks about her time studying Education Studies and how it gave her the confidence to start her own charity.
I went to secondary school in Leeds, which is very different from Northampton. I chose to study in Northampton because I liked that it was a town; it had everything I needed, and it was close to London, which is a city that I love.
The degree itself was one of the main reasons I chose to study at the University of Northampton. I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived at the University, but I found that my lecturers were very welcoming, and the degree was challenging me in ways that I hadn’t been challenged before.
From the first year, I really enjoyed the international education modules. That was the first time I started to realise that I was very interested in learning about international educational policies. This would be something I would explore further as my years at university continued.
I went to school in Singapore, Ethiopia and the UK. What I loved most about the course was that I could explore my educational background and look at the policies that influenced my education.
As I studied my joint honours with Social Care, I was able to relate my Education Studies degree with social issues which I felt passionately about. In the first year we had a module in Social Care which required us to volunteer for 100 hours.
Through this module I started volunteering at Zimwomen, a local charity that works to empower women in Northampton. After I started volunteering for them, I felt encouraged to start my own charity, which I did in February 2015. Hidden Scars, named by my mother, was inspired by my passion to learn more about female genital mutilation (FGM). The founder of Zimwomen became my mentor, and I still volunteer for them.
I explored FGM further in my degree, studying FGM education in the UK and internationally. One of the things I appreciated about Education Studies was that I had the option to explore my passions which I felt was very important and it is something I am still very grateful for. It gave me the confidence I needed to continue my work around FGM in an academic setting. I also had the opportunity to inform many students on campus such as midwifery and social work students about female genital mutilation as a guest lecturer.
I took a year out between my second and third year because I wanted to spend some time building my networks around FGM. During this time, I started working as a lead outreach worker for Integrate UK, a charity based in Bristol.
My role with Integrate UK was to go into schools, hospitals and other professional settings and teach students and professionals about FGM, grooming for radicalisation and child sexual exploitation and honour crime. I have been able to apply many skills I learnt in my Education Studies degree into my role. My gap year, which was linked to two HRM modules, gave me more confidence in my work and I was ready to start the third year with a fresh mindset.
When I came back to finish my final year of university, I was elected as the Women’s Officer at Northampton Students’ Union. This gave me a platform to investigate issues that I felt passionate about. I held many events and got involved in some work around the Black Minority Ethnic attainment gap with the Faculty of Education and Humanities.
This Student Union role and my dissertation, which focused on the approaches different universities are taking towards sexual assault on campus, is another example of how I have been able to link my passions and my degree together.
