I Got Rejected. That Rejection Email Changed My Life.
I want to tell you about a rejection email that changed everything.
Not the usual kind of rejection. Not the cold, copy-and-paste “we regret to inform you” that you delete without finishing. This one was different. This one said: you didn’t win the scholarship, but here’s a community you should join.
I almost ignored it.
I’m glad I didn’t.
How It Started
I was in 200 level, pharmacy school, Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Sagamu, Nigeria, doing what every student who needs money does searching for scholarships online.
I don’t even remember exactly how I found WAAW Foundation. Maybe someone shared the link. Maybe I stumbled on it. But I remember what I read: this organisation gives scholarships to females in STEM.
I said, okay. Let me try.
I tried. I didn’t get it.
But that rejection email? It didn’t just say no. It said, there’s a WAAW community in your school. There’s someone called Winifred Odunuku. Reach out.
Something in me said: this isn’t over.
So I reached out.
The Community That Felt Like Mine
When I found WAAW Foundation, I wasn’t looking for a community. I was looking for funding.
But what I found was something I didn’t know I needed.
See, I’ve always been interested in the girl child. I’ve always noticed how females are underrepresented in STEM. How we show up, we’re talented, we’re capable, but somehow the numbers don’t reflect that. The opportunities don’t reflect that.
When I saw what WAAW was doing, university students going into secondary schools, showing younger girls that this path is possible, I thought: this is exactly where I need to be.
So I didn’t just join. I became invested.
From my 200 level to my 500 level, through five years of pharmacy school, through everything that came with being a student in Nigeria in the middle of economic crisis and all the rest of it—WAAW was a constant.
200 Girls. Every Single Outreach.
When I became chapter lead, people would ask: how are you always doing outreaches?
Honestly? I couldn’t stop going. Not because I was exceptionally motivated or anything like that. I kept going because every single time we showed up, I saw the gap.
These students, they’re waiting. Their teachers aren’t always answering their questions. Nobody is walking into their classrooms saying “you can become an engineer, you can become a doctor, you can become a scientist.” They’re just sitting there with dreams they’re not sure they’re allowed to have.
And then we walk in.
Our process was simple. Find a school. Figure out what they need. Sometimes it’s career guidance for SS3 students getting ready for JAMB. Sometimes it’s a practical session, we’d teach solar energy, then transition into a conversation about wind turbines, then ease into career choices. We made it interactive. We made it exciting.
On a good outreach in Sagamu, we’d reach 200 girls. Public secondary schools here have a lot of students. And every single time, I’d leave more motivated than when I came.
Because here’s what I noticed: when we come, they light up.
Not just from the experiments, although yes, watching a student’s face when she understands something about solar energy for the first time? That’s a whole moment. But just from seeing us. University students. Girls, like them, who decided to pursue STEM and are still here, still going.
We become the proof that it’s possible.
The One That Stuck With Me
February 2024. We went to a secondary school for an outreach with SS3 students.
When we got there, the energy was flat. These students had seen speakers before. People come in, give a talk, leave. They’d already developed that look—oh, another one is here, let’s just get through this.
We started anyway.
Then we did the practical. Wind turbine.
I watched the moment it clicked. Their faces changed. They started leaning forward. Hands went up. Students who were quiet five minutes ago were answering questions, correcting each other, asking more.
There was one girl. She answered a question, and the way she answered, you could tell she surprised herself. Like she didn’t know she knew that.
I’ve carried that moment with me since.
That’s why we keep going.
The Scholarship That Came at the Right Time
I eventually got the WAAW Foundation Scholarship in 2023.
I say “eventually” like it was a long time coming. And honestly? It was. Because that first rejection is what started everything, and by the time I got the scholarship, I understood the work differently.
But what that scholarship meant in practical terms?
There was a moment—I remember it clearly—where I needed to pay my school fees and I didn’t have the complete amount. I didn’t even know the second disbursement was coming. And then I saw the alert.
It was like, God, okay. You heard me.
That money didn’t just pay fees. It freed me. It took the weight of worrying about finances off my chest and let me just focus on what I came to school to do: become a pharmacist. Become an advocate. Create impact.
The 2022 Summit Changed How I See Myself
Before the summit, I was a fellow. Enthusiastic but still finding my footing.
After the summit, I was a leader who knew exactly why she was doing this work.
I went to Abuja. First time on a plane. First time in that city. And I sat in a room with girls from across Nigeria, from different backgrounds, different states, all of us united by this one thing: we believed girls belonged in STEM.
I heard Dr. Unoma speak. I heard how she started WAAW, why she started it, how she kept scaling even while doing everything else she was doing.
And something shifted in me.
I stopped thinking about advocacy as something I was doing for other people. I started understanding that I had to also become the thing I was advocating for. I couldn’t stand in front of girls and say “you can be a leader in STEM” if I wasn’t also building myself into one.
That summit also gave me connections I still benefit from today. People I met once, in 2022, have had more impact on my career than people I see regularly. Just that one meeting. That’s the power of the right community.
What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Then
I just got inducted into the pharmacy profession.
Pharmacist Evelyn Falaye.
And as I look back, here’s what I want to tell every WAAW fellow actually, every young woman trying to create impact while also surviving school, life, Nigeria, everything:
You are not doing this for one person.
That one girl you speak to at an outreach? She goes home and tells her sister. Her sister tells her friend. Her friend stops doubting herself. The ripple effect is real, even when you can’t see it.
I remember our very first outreach. We didn’t even have tools for experiments yet. It was just us, talking to girls about self-confidence. A student came up to me after and said she’d been feeling terrible about herself, people had been putting her down, and she didn’t know how to handle it. But after our session, she felt different. She said she now knew how to handle the criticism coming at her.
We didn’t teach science that day. We gave her something to stand on.
That’s the work.
And please, communicate your impact.
If you go on an outreach and don’t document it, don’t share it, don’t tell the story, it’s like you didn’t go. I know that sounds harsh. But in this world, in 2026, impact that isn’t communicated doesn’t travel. It stays in that classroom and doesn’t go anywhere else.
Take the pictures. Write the caption. Fill the report. Tell someone “200 girls showed up and two of them said this.” Because those stories are what get more volunteers. More funding. More people who say “oh, I want to be part of this.”
The work deserves to be seen.
To the Girls We Haven’t Reached Yet
There’s a student somewhere in a public secondary school in Nigeria, in Kenya, in Ghana, in Cameroon, who has a dream she’s too afraid to say out loud.
Maybe she wants to be an engineer. Maybe a scientist.
She’s waiting for someone to walk in and say: you belong here.
That’s what we do.
That’s what I’ve given five years to.
That’s why, even now that I’m Pharmacist Evelyn, even now that I’m an alumna, I’m not done.
Because as long as there’s a school that hasn’t been reached, and a girl who hasn’t been told she’s capable
We have to keep going.
Evelyn Falaye is a WAAW Foundation 2023 Scholar, Chapter Lead alumna from Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Sagamu, Nigeria, and a newly inducted Pharmacist. She served as a WAAW fellow from 2022 to 2025.
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