Nigerian creative director and disability inclusion advocate, Misturah Abisola Owolabi, has secured the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship to pursue a fully funded master’s degree at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, United Kingdom.

Owolabi’s scholarship comes after she submitted 52 applications for scholarships, fellowships and other professional opportunities, including programmes associated with the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley and Edinburgh, as well as the Chevening Scholarship and several Erasmus Mundus programmes.

The scholarship will enable her to pursue an MA in Gender and Development, where she is expected to deepen her understanding of gender, development, public policy and social inclusion.

For Owolabi, the award represents the culmination of a lengthy application process marked by several rejections.

“I’ve achieved a lot of things in my life, but you see this particular win? I still can’t find the words,” she said.

“I dedicated months to applying for opportunities, and the rejections really humbled me. But every time I thought I had received my best offer, another one came. I’m deeply grateful to God for this opportunity.”

Owolabi began her professional career in 2013 and has since worked across advertising, marketing, media, technology, education, fashion, talent management and disability advocacy.

She is a Cannes Lions-winning copywriter and contributed to a campaign that became Nigeria and West Africa’s first Cannes Lions win.

Over the years, she has worked with advertising agencies, brands, civic technology and social impact organisations, while also leading creative and communications functions.

Her professional activities have increasingly focused on disability inclusion.

In 2021, she founded Misty Glam Company, a disability-inclusive talent management and advocacy company. She subsequently led the creation of Nigeria’s first Albinism Advocacy Pageant and established the Advocacy Pageant Network.

She also developed “Before You Say That,” a free resource focused on disability-inclusive language.

Through IncluNorm Foundation, Owolabi has worked on disability education, technology, media and adaptive fashion initiatives.

IncluNorm, one of the organisation’s initiatives, is a disability inclusion education and technology platform that includes a quiz designed to improve users’ understanding of disability inclusion.

Her work also includes IncluNorm Fashion, an adaptive fashion venture, and IncluNorm Media, a disability-focused newsroom covering issues, policies, innovation and people within Africa’s disability sector.

Owolabi said her decision to pursue postgraduate study was informed by the need to complement her practical experience with stronger academic and policy expertise.

She intends to use the knowledge acquired at IDS to strengthen her work around gender, disability rights, development and social inclusion, particularly in relation to women with disabilities.

“Becoming a Commonwealth Scholar means gaining the knowledge to scale the work I already do to advance the representation of women with disabilities across Nigeria’s creative industries,” she said.

“My master’s at IDS will strengthen my policy analysis and advocacy skills to shape policies that promote disability rights and inclusion in Africa.”

The scholarship also marks a new academic chapter for Owolabi, coming nine years after her undergraduate studies.

During the intervening period, she developed a career spanning creative communications and social impact, while establishing and contributing to initiatives focused on disability representation and inclusion.

Rather than viewing the nine-year gap as a setback, she said the professional experience would provide useful context for her postgraduate studies.

“I want to return to the work I’m already doing in Africa with stronger tools, not just to advocate for inclusion, but to better understand and influence the policies and systems that determine whether inclusion actually happens,” she said.

Owolabi is expected to commence the MA programme at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, in September 2026.

The Commonwealth Shared Scholarship is expected to provide her with an opportunity to further develop the academic and policy skills required to contribute to disability rights and social inclusion initiatives in Nigeria and across Africa