Elsie Effah Kaufmann Quotes

Life is full of highs and lows; it’s a normal part of being alive.

Haha, you know I recently got a chance to speak to a group of students who invited me to their session and my title was about sustainable success. I asked them what they considered successful. Winnie, I have received many awards and many people know me for the awards but all my awards have been received because of things I did for other people; I have never received an award for anything I have done for myself! So to me success is about your contribution to others; the sacrifices you make to make life better for others.

I have also had issues with my relationship! I was married, I am now divorced. Maybe part of it is about me being too focused and doing certain things which may not necessarily be healthy for a relationship.

Since 2017, I have been receiving all kinds of awards every year, haha. In 2017 itself I received the Impact Africa Summit award for education in Ghana; I am the Laureate for Ghana in education. It again has to do with my attitude towards promoting education in Ghana.

Truthfully, I have seen certain reactions because I am female. For example, a student comes to me with these amazing compliments about my work, the way I inspire them and how they are honoured to have me as their head of department. Only problem is they can’t tell their parents that their head of department is a woman! Their father will question how serious that engineering department is!

In 2010 I received the best teacher award for sciences at my university – University of Ghana. This award was for the work I had done to help establish engineering plus the activities I do in my classes. Each of my classes has a course project because I want to change the narrative from just theoretical exposure in class to something more practical for my students. So my students know me for asking them to look for problems in their societies and come to class with them. They know that I don’t have all the solutions but I have a lot of experience; so if your solution is not feasible, I have the ability to point that out and give you suggestions on how to make it work.

In 2011, I was a fellow of the International Women’s Forum Leadership program – the leadership foundation. I guess my application for this was strong because some of the activities I have done in education. This allowed me to go back to school – Harvard Business School and INSEAD, executive education programs. This was another opportunity for me to build my leadership skills and strengthen my ability to do the things I have been able to do and are still doing.