Amma honoured in Student Nursing Times Awards 2020

We are delighted that nurse graduate Amma Frimpong has been honoured in the Student Nursing Times Awards 2020.

She won the Mary Seacole Award for Outstanding Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion for working tirelessly to empower and promote social justice in the nursing profession. She strives to empower and impact positively on the lives of people through her clinical and charity work and she successfully delivered an informative event to celebrate Black History Month.

Amma, who graduated this year and is currently working as a district nurse at Thundersley Clinic in south Essex, said: “I’m so grateful to everyone at the University of Essex, especially Thomas Currid and Winifred Eboh, for believing in me and encouraging me to reach for the stars. I hope that this award and the opportunities that come along with it will enable me to give back more into the communities in which I work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Dean of the School of Health and Social Care, Professor Victoria Joffe, said: “We are very proud of Amma and the work she is doing in enhancing diversity and inclusion in the School and University. She has shown great leadership in supporting our work on addressing racism at the University and in placements and is a real credit to us all at Essex and to the nursing profession.”

Thomas Currid, Senior Lecturer in the School, added: “My heartiest congratulations to Amma on receiving this very prestigious award. It is very well deserved. Amma`s local and international voluntary work is truly inspirational. It has brought many benefits to the lives of people that she helps and supports. Her energetic efforts have provided sustainable, positive changes to individuals, and to the communities they live within.”

Amma grew up in Ghana. Before coming to Essex, she studied both computer science and education, and worked at developing parenting classes, with a specific focus on helping fathers who had children with challenging behaviour.

In 2017, she set up a social enterprise in the UK, Bridging Families, and a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Ghana. The NGO sets up reading clubs by shipping ex-library books from the UK to deprived areas in Ghana, enabling children between the ages of 4 and 16 years to continue their education. Amma came to Essex in 2019 to complete a postgraduate degree in Adult Nursing.

Three other students were also shortlisted for the awards.

Rosina Chapman, who was shortlisted for the Adult Student Nurse of the Year Award, has been described by her lecturers as an “extremely impressive and exceptional student” whose “selfless, caring demeanour puts others before herself”. Nkiruka Caroline Igwilo and Jola Tong were also both shortlisted for the Mental Health Student Nurse of the Year Award. Jola has been described as a self-effacing genuine, gentle and generous student who has a depth of perspective that enables her to see beyond the obvious and intervene to effect hope and ambition.