Filmmaker and education activist Zuriel Oduwole, who is renowned for her contributions to gender equality and world peace, was just nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination honors Oduwole’s 10-year diplomatic and development efforts.
It was filed by an emeritus professor of geosciences at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and a professor of clinical education engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Upon learning of her Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Oduwole expressed humility and surprise.
She said, “I have never sought recognition, only to speak up where it’s needed. This honor reflects the urgent need to invest in young voices as agents of change.”
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Here are some fascinating facts about her.
1. She has Nigerian roots. Her grandfather Dr. Michael Oduwole left Nigeria in 1954 to Scotland to become a medical doctor, where her father Ademola Oduwole was born. He then emigrated to Los Angeles in 1991, where she was born in 2002.
2. Forbes reports that the 22-year-old first garnered international attention at the age of 13 when she met with then-President David Granger of Guyana in New York, urging him to take into account the impact of war on women and girls amid rising tensions with Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region.
3. She worked with President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique in 2019, which helped the country decide to outlaw child marriage. Her position in high-level policy debates and conflict resolution was further cemented when she was later invited by an Arab leader during the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Gulf.
4. Her journey began at nine years old when she took part in a documentary competition sponsored by the History Channel. The competition was for schools to mark National History Day in the U.S. Her documentary for the school competition, The Ghana Revolution, included interviews with two former presidents of the country: Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor. That was her first film.
Her second film, The 1963 OAU Formation, landed her a profile in Forbes Magazine about being the youngest filmmaker in the world. Her third film, A Promising Africa, was screened in five countries—and she was only 12. She would go on to produce three more films. All of them were self-produced and self-edited, according to Pictet.
5. She made her first documentary at age nine by Googling how to operate a camera, set up lighting, and edit rushes. She soon realized that if other girls her age were provided with the same opportunities, they could do the same. So she decided to set up a program to teach young, unemployed or out-of-school girls across Africa exactly that. Her first pilot class was in Namibia, where she taught a class of 25 younger girls basic filming and editing skills using free software and their phones. She was only 13.
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6. According to the St. Vincent Times, she has served as an advisor to presidents and government officials from over 21 nations, including Botswana, the Caribbean, Ethiopia, Mexico, Jamaica, the Middle East, South Africa, and the United States.
7. Calling her the world’s most powerful girl in January 2017, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, honored her in Washington DC at the state department for her work against child marriages and for championing education access for marginalized communities.
8. Oduwole was accepted to USC at the age of 20 and is currently a doctoral student there.
9. She has received several awards, including the 8th UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Leadership Award in 2022 for her decade-long peacebuilding efforts.
10. Oduwole is a co-founder of Dream Up Speak Up Stand Up, a nonprofit organization that works to stop child marriages and give girls equitable access to education.
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