Never in her wildest dreams did 22-year-old Zuriel Elise Oduwole, an unpretentious woman from Santa Clarita and a graduate of UCLA, expect to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

When Oduwole was 9, she saw a 12-year-old girl crying on TV because she was being forced into a marriage she did not want or understand.

That began Oduwole’s global education advocacy effort at the age of 10. She eventually met with the presidents of seven African countries, and without spending a nickel became a shining example of what an educated girl can do.

She wanted the powerful leaders to understand the opportunities for girls in their countries, so she co-founded the nonprofit Dream Up Speak Up Stand Up to fight for equal access for girls to get educations, and to end child marriages worldwide.

Oduwole was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but it was never in her lofty plans.

The winners in six categories will be announced in early October and the prizes will be awarded on Dec. 10, on the anniversary of the death of the founder, Alfred Nobel.

Oduwole is unsure which category she has been placed in, or for what of specific work she is being celebrated.

“My whole family is still in shock,” Oduwole said on Feb. 18. “We are still sorting how, why, who … but so honored and so grateful and extremely thankful to those who nominated me because in complete honesty, I did not think people were paying that much attention to what I was doing.”

The Nobel Peace Prize nomination process closed Jan. 31. She was nominated by a professor of clinical education engineering at USC Rossier School of Education, an emeritus professor at University of Missouri – Kansas City, and a Nigerian senator.

Anthony B. Maddox, the professor at USC, had never nominated anyone for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Most of the people (who are nominated) can have 30 years of experience,” he said, adding he didn’t nominate her for any particular category or field. “Well at her age, she’s had more than 10 years of experience, so she was eligible to be admitted under those circumstances.”

Maddox has watched the Nobel Peace Prize process throughout his life and believes those who are nominated, or win, do so because “people thought it was a recognition they actually earned.”

He said, “I looked at that from her standpoint. Since she was 10 years old, she’s been all over the world.”

If she is honored with the Nobel Peace Prize this fall, she would join an elite list of Americans who have won, including four presidents and a secretary of state.

Now studying at USC to earn a doctorate in organizational change and leadership, Oduwole is a filmmaker and influencer.

As an advisor she has met with government officials and presidents of more than 21 countries including Botswana, Caribbean Ethiopia Mexico, Jamaica, the Middle East, South Africa and the U.S.

Oduwole met David Granger, president of Guyana, to discuss peace initiatives when she was 13 and Guyana was on the brink of conflict because of a dispute over oil territory.

On her trip to Egypt, she discussed youth and peace in the region with Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi.

And Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, president of Mozambique, met with Oduwole in 2018 to discuss the importance of education in his country.

Sixteen months later, after extensive negotiations, Mozambique formally outlawed girl marriages.

“That impacted 1.1 million school-aged girls in that country that instead of getting married, they were able to finish their education and have a really good chance to improve their life,” Oduwole said.

All along, Oduwole has been a role model for her younger sister, Azaliah, who closely watched her older sister in action.

Azaliah, 20, has been working with sister since she was eight.

“Something I’ve always admired is that my sister has had a vision of what she wanted to do regarding girls’ education advocacy,” Azaliah said.

The two sisters are co-founders of Dream Up Speak Up Stand Up, whose larger team is made up of the six-member Oduwole family at the dinner table.

Azaliah said, “Seeing that growing up and seeing her dreams become a reality, how she is able to put in the time, the effort and the grit to make a difference in the world whether it’s through our foundation work … has been an inspiration and an amazing journey.”

Watching Zuriel become a woman, and watching how she led, inspired Azalia’s journey into the field of psychology.

“She just didn’t want to sit there and say, ‘Oh well, what am I going to do?’” Azaliah said. “She took the initiative into her own hands.”

Their older sister Arielle and younger brother Ismachiah have also contributed to the success of Dream Up Speak Up Stand Up. “As a mom I’m really proud,” said Patricia Oduwole, who works in information technology, about her four children. “I am just very grateful each has found something they can focus on and that they love to put their effort into, because I think in life if you have something you love and have passion about, it matters. I’m happy for them.”

Because Zuriel knew the power of U.S. diplomatic pressure, at 14 she met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry in January 2017 to discuss creating policies that advocated for reward-based education for girls — a process in which behavior is shaped and reinforced through rewards.

On April 21, 2014, Oduwole was cited as the most powerful 11-year-old in the world by New York Business Insider in their listing of “World’s Most Powerful Person at Every Age”. And Elle and Forbes magazines published stories about her journey.

But she knew labels accomplished very little. So she reached out wider.

To date she has met with more than 36 presidents and prime ministers around the globe.

“We have done filmmaking workshops (for) youth because we understand the importance of media … the power of media, so to get the youth to understand that for themselves and use filmmaking as a platform to tell their story, to tell other people stories, it’s really about creating a generation of change-makers,” Oduwole said.