A day after leading a panel of thought leaders at a Forbes conference in Johannesburg – South Africa, for female executives that included a footfall federation CEO, a Basketball conference executive, to capital market icons and leading attorneys as part of events celebrating the International Women’s day series of events, 21 year old Zuriel Oduwole was presented with the Forbes Women Global Achievers award.
To Zuriel, the Award itself, presented to eleven women in different categories and chosen from millions of eligible recipients of which she was one, was only part of the story.
The true award for her, was standing on the same stage to receive her recognition with a women whom she has admired from a distance for over a decade since the age of 10. She is Her Excellency Graca Machel, the widow of President Nelson Mandela, and co-founder of ” The Elders” forum, a global peace advocacy whose original members included 4 Nobel peace prize winners – Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, Secretary General Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela.
At age 80, Ms Graca Machel was receiving the Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award for her gender equity and advocacy work that began 50 years ago, in 1975.
For her part, Zuriel Oduwole’s work in helping end girl marriage in Mozambique in 2019 after meeting the country’s President a year earlier, her film making class for older girls that has now extended across 7 countries on 2 continents, her ability to meet personally with 35 Presidents and Prime Ministers over a decade period to discuss critical global development issues, and more recently, her peace mediation initiative between nations on the brink of conflict, were all singled out in the citation read before her award presentation.
Through her walk and her development projects, she continues to be the epitome and a powerful ‘Ambassador by Example’, of why impediments should be removed to allow all girls across the globe to go to school till at least the age of 18, so they have more options for their future besides an early marriage, a subsistence living, or dependence based journey in life.
