Benedicta Delima is an environmental services (EVS) technician at Swarthmore College, responsible for maintaining the third floor of Parrish Hall’s East Wing. Less known is her role as the founder of “Benedicta and Sonnie’s Tears and Pains” (BSTP), a nonprofit she launched in 2023 to support Ghanaian widows and their children with housing, education, and small business aid. In recognition of her contributions to Swarthmore’s Black Cultural Center (BCC) community, Delima was honored with the Kathryn L. Morgan Award in May 2025. Last week, The Phoenix sat down with Delima to discuss the mission of and her experience running BSTP. Below is an edited transcript.
Eleanor Xu: Thank you so much for speaking with us, Ms. Benedicta. To begin, could you tell us what inspired you to start BSTP in 2023 to support widows in Ghana?
Benedicta Delima: When I was in Ghana, I used to talk with my father about coming up with something [to help the widows]. He was a lawyer, and he used to tell me about the legal and social challenges that surviving spouses face in Ghana. But we never expected this to happen to me before my husband died of prostate cancer in 2015. My father used to tell me about these clients who were [physically] assaulted by their late husbands’ families, and then my late husband’s people tried the same thing on me. After his death, his people came after the house, and I feared they would try to take my son, Sonnie, [who] was only seven then. I had to go into hiding with him, and he didn’t go to school for almost three months.
When I came to the U.S. with Sonnie in 2017, I decided to help surviving spouses back home. It took time to organize myself and to heal, but the vision I shared with my father has always been there. He passed away in 2021, and it had a lot of effect on me, but the dreams I once had never left.
EX: Looking back on what happened to you, do you still carry resentment toward your husband’s family?
BD: Yes, because I still do not know where my late husband was buried due to threats from his family. I will only find closure when surviving spouses in Ghana are no longer evicted from their marital homes.
[However, many] of the widows are having depression and mental issues, and there is often no hope. [When their husbands die, their] lives just change from whatever situation they were in into darkness: they have kids to feed, they have worries. There’s the sorrow, the hunger, poverty, the shame, the humiliation, the false accusations — women often get accused of killing their husbands, which is all wrong. [All these stresses make] some of them pass away not long after the men pass away.
EX: Based on your personal experiences, what specific challenges do surviving spouses in Ghana commonly face?
BD: Before he passed away, my husband made a will and gave the house to my son, Sonnie, but his family didn’t care. They even prevented me from going to his final burial in his hometown in the Volta Region. They would come to the house all the time, aggressively. When I ran to the police and asked an officer for help, she told me to leave because there’s nothing she could do for me.
In Ghana, it’s common for in-laws to harass the widow. They punish the women for the properties that the men have acquired with or without the widows’ support. It’s wicked. No one should be able to take advantage of and kick out a surviving spouse from where she has labored all the days of her life — but that is common in Ghana.
EX: A previous article by The Phoenix noted that you have spoken with a former first lady of Ghana regarding legal remedies for protecting widows in the country. What led you to that meeting, and what issues have been covered in your discussion?
BD: The reason I went to her is because the Intestate Succession Law was passed in 1985, during her time as the first lady. This law is supposed to protect surviving spouses when it comes to [the distribution of the deceased person’s property]. But, in Ghana, we have what is called the extended family system, and it has no respect for the Intestate Succession Law — and this is a very serious issue. I am a victim of the frustration of that law, and that is why I am fighting for [the Intestate Succession Law] to be strengthened. It should protect all surviving spouses, in the sense that when somebody loses her husband or his wife, nobody should come and torture them, and they should have peace of mind and comfort in their time of grief to bury their loved one.
EX: Have you tried working with other government officials or legal institutions in Ghana to push for reform?
BD: Yes. My lawyer and I have sent messages to the attorney general and to the inspector general of police. They know that I have a book [“Widow and Son”] and [they know the] issues I’m raising, but everybody is quiet. My lawyer suggested that I come down [to Ghana] and have a meeting with stakeholders, where they can put me out on the media or on a TV station that will bring lots of people and opinion leaders to contribute, and something can be done.
EX: In an earlier conversation, you mentioned that many ordinary people in Ghana don’t have access to the country’s constitution. Why do you think that is the case?
BD: The Ghanaian government has a constitution to guide the people, but only a few know what is inside the constitution, because the language is obscure and it is written in English [Ghana’s official language]. The illiteracy rate in Ghana is high — a lot of people do not speak or read in English, but they can read in local languages, and these languages are also being taught in school. So the constitution should be broken down and translated into languages that these people speak — it should be written in all languages [used in Ghana] in its simplest form.
EX: What are the next steps for BSTP and your advocacy efforts in general?
BD: I want to bring together as many widows and their suffering children as possible, who have similar stories and are sharing the same feelings and struggles that I have been through. I also want to educate the people and advocate for access to and awareness of the constitution, because I haven’t come out to speak on this issue yet. BSTP will keep advocating for the right thing to be done.
