STUDENT WELLBEING ·  CULTURE & IDENTITY: Grieving Far From Home

For Ghanaian students studying abroad, loss is not just personal — it is cultural, communal, and quietly carried alone.

When a loved one dies back in Ghana, the expectation is clear: you grieve together. Neighbours fill the yard, food is cooked in large pots, and the community holds you up through song, prayer, and presence. Death, in many Ghanaian traditions, is never a private affair. It belongs to the collective.

But for the thousands of Ghanaian students studying thousands of miles from home, that collective is unreachable. And the grief sudden, heavy, and stripped of its familiar rituals  must somehow be managed alone, between lectures and deadlines, in a country that processes loss in an entirely different way.

“In a society built on individualism, the communal architecture of African grief has no place to land.”

Across much of sub-Saharan Africa, grief is a shared responsibility. In Ghana, it is also deeply gendered: men and women are often expected to mourn differently, shaped by longstanding cultural norms around strength, composure, and the public expression of emotion. For a young Ghanaian man studying abroad, weeping openly may feel like a violation of everything he was raised to believe about how a man grieves. For a young woman, the absence of other women to mourn with  to wail with, to cook with, to sit in silence with  can feel like an amputation.

When those cultural frameworks are removed, students are left with a grief that has no script. And when the people around them  flatmates, classmates, academic peers  come from entirely different traditions of mourning, the sense of isolation deepens.

The accent barrier

English is the language of instruction in Ghana’s schools, and most Ghanaian students arrive abroad as confident, articulate communicators. Yet language, in grief, is rarely about grammar. It is about nuance, about the right word at the right moment, about the comfort of being truly understood.

Accent differences can make even ordinary conversations feel effortful. In moments of emotional vulnerability, that effort can feel insurmountable. A student who might otherwise seek support may choose silence instead — not because help is unavailable, but because the emotional cost of being misunderstood, or of having to explain and re-explain, simply feels too high.

The result is a painful irony: surrounded by people, yet profoundly alone in one of the most difficult experiences a human being can face.

“The emotional cost of being misunderstood can feel higher than the pain of grieving in silence.”

What universities can do and what students should know

Universities in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia have bereavement protocols in place, but many students  particularly international students  are unaware they exist, or feel uncertain about whether those systems are designed with them in mind. They are. Here is how to navigate them.

Contact your academic advisor

They are your first official point of contact. Notify them as soon as you are able. You do not need to explain everything a brief message is enough to begin the process and protect your academic standing.

Inform your department

Your department can grant extensions, defer assessments, and communicate on your behalf with other faculty. You should not be sitting exams while grieving in silence  formal notification opens doors that remain closed without it.

Follow your institution’s bereavement protocol

Most universities have a formal process  ask Student Services or your advisor for the relevant documentation. This may include compassionate leave, counselling referrals, and financial support in some cases.

Reach out to international student support

Many campuses have dedicated international student offices with staff trained in cross-cultural sensitivity. These teams often understand that grief looks different across cultures and can connect you with communities and counsellors who reflect that understanding.

Find your community

Ghanaian and broader African student associations exist at most large universities. These spaces a WhatsApp group, a weekly meeting, a shared meal  can provide the communal warmth that institutional support, however well-intentioned, often cannot.

Creating new rituals in a new place

Grief does not wait for the right conditions. It arrives when it arrives. And for students far from home, learning to grieve in a new context is not a betrayal of where they come from — it is an act of survival and self-compassion.

That might mean lighting a candle alone in a dorm room. It might mean calling home and allowing yourself to cry across a phone screen. It might mean telling one trusted person —even haltingly, even imperfectly  that you are not okay. It might mean cooking a dish your mother made, or playing music from your hometown, or simply sitting with your sadness instead of burying it beneath productivity.

The communal container of home cannot be perfectly recreated abroad. But pieces of it can be. And in those pieces, something real and sustaining can still be found.

If you are a student experiencing bereavement, speak to your university’s Student Services team as a first step. You are entitled to support  and you do not have to carry this alone.