Help Fund My PhD in Gender & Media at Sussex University

“Your application for the PhD in Gender (Humanities) at the University of Sussex has been successful. Congratulations on securing your place”.

If you think this is the beginning of the story, you might want to think again. Behind this sentence lies a much longer journey.

Hello everyone. My name is Esra Saleh from Egypt, and I am now proud to introduce myself as a feminist journalist and researcher, a role that was not possible for me a few years ago.

After graduating from pharmacy school with honours following five years of study, I followed the “safe” and “socially acceptable” path for another five years, grading up in positions as a pharmacist. It took me ten years to realise that this is not my place and I have another mission to fulfil in life.

The first milestone of the journey came with the Egyptian revolution in 2011, when I was prohibited from joining the protestors in the streets who were demanding “Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice”, only because I am “a girl”. However, there was another revolution happening within me in parallel, urging me to break the silence and question all these gender norms. This eye-opening experience led me to find journalism the most suitable tool to tell not only my story, but the story of all women who share this struggle with me.

So, I walked away from certainty in pharmacy and started over from scratch, educated myself in the new career until I became qualified enough to earn a scholarship as the first Egyptian woman to study MA in Journalism and New Media at the Jordan Media Institute in Amman, Jordan. Another milestone that shaped my professional and personal Journey, after which I worked relentlessly within different media outlets and newsrooms to break into a field that didn’t always welcome voices like mine.

As I could not ignore my feminist awareness, I decided to specialise in feminist journalism and gender-inclusive media, amplifying women's voices in an extremely male-dominated field. My strong belief fueled this commitment until I established my name as one of the few specialists and trainers in this field in the MENA region.

Then came the major milestone of my life, when I was awarded a Chevening scholarship in 2023 to study my second MA in Gender and Media at the University of Sussex in the UK. Out of over 70000 applications worldwide, I was among the less than 2% accepted from my country.

While working on my dissertation, I realised just how scarce feminist media scholarship from the MENA region truly is. That revealed a deeper marginalisation of our voices, stories, and ways of knowing, which prompted me to pursue my PhD to help fill that research gap and contribute to feminist knowledge shaped by our context and rooted in our region’s realities.

Last January, I successfully secured my place in the PhD programme at the University of Sussex for the academic year 2025, under the supervision of a great team consisting of Dr Irene Fubara Manuel and Dr Feras Al Kabani, who wrote in support of my research project application:

“Esra’s project fits in perfectly with the research outlook of the Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex (MENACS) and brings an Arab-Egyptian perspective to interdisciplinary research in digital media, cultural studies and feminism within MAH, the wider University and nationally, where she would be able to present her work in major international conferences, such as the Annual Conference of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), Europe’s largest MENA-focused conference”

Unfortunately, I was not awarded a scholarship to secure my funding. Rather, the committee said in their email: “The candidate has a strong background necessary to carry it out, although overall resources for Arabic and Egyptian context in Media, Arts and Humanities school could be limited with the exception of an immediate supervisory team.”

As an international student, the tuition fees are 22,575 GBP per year for at least 3 years required to implement my research project, which is a huge amount of money that I cannot secure by myself.

Now, if you think this is the end of the story, again, you might need to think again. This is the beginning of another chapter in this journey that needs your urgent support.

What I will cover:

What I need:

£ 22,575 for first-year tuition fees

I know that this might sound like a huge dream, but as you may have realised by now, my whole journey was nothing but chasing dreams that seemed to be impossible.

Support me if:

Even small contributions help. And if you’re unable to donate, sharing this campaign with your network would mean so much.

This isn’t just my journey. It’s for all the women who have had to justify their voices. For those who are told their stories don’t matter.

Thank you for reading, supporting, and believing.

With love and solidarity,

Esra