Math 101: "Thinking Outside the Box" = Ingenuity by Zuriel Elise

Math 101: "Thinking Outside the Box" = Ingenuity by Zuriel Elise - October 2018 Scholarship Essay

As a 16-year-old “college ready” future world leader, I have applied the phrase “thinking outside the box” to everything I have done in life. From the early age of four. I loved engineering and building contraptions. As I got older and I needed something for my engineering that I didn’t have, or when something wasn’t working, I would Forrest Gump my way around the issue by using things around the house. Things that you wouldn’t ordinarily think of using.

The phrase “thinking outside of box” is my standard approach to things when there is not an obvious solution, or when I want to get things done now instead of waiting for traditional solutions. When I was nine years-old, I entered a competition meant for eleven to sixteen-year-old students sponsored by the History channel. The competition asked students to create a media presentation on revolutions that happened in history. So, I decided to produce a documentary. The thing was that most of my peers were covering things that took place in the United States, or in Europe. I thought this was a great opportunity to highlight to my peers here in the US the challenges other countries faced about basic things we take for granted. What better way to connect with a young generation who were not too excited about reading newspapers or watching foreign news, than make a nice, short documentary film about the issues.

So, I made my film on the Ghana Revolution. For my primary sources, I didn’t just want to talk to people who were around at the time of the revolution; I wanted to talk to the man who started it. I wrote to Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, who was also the President of Ghana about my project and why it was important I told the younger generation about it. My project impressed him, and so he invited me over to come and meet with him. But while I was in Ghana, I saw something else. Girls who were around my age (so from nine to sixteen) on the streets instead of being in school, selling things like peanuts, or candies, or bottled water, to survive or for their families. Sometimes, they chased after cars because the driver did not pay for the goods. This broke my heart and made me realize there are not enough people fighting to get them back into school. So, a year later when I turned ten, I started my Dream Up, Speak Up, Stand Up program to try and get more children, especially girls, back into school.

My Ghana experience gave me an opportunity to talk about the basic things other countries fought for that caused revolutions, like good roads, health care, schools, water to drink, and children, especially girls, being able to go to school. Because of my experience, I now tell other countries major issues and stories, via film, and I get asked to talk globally as a child, about the need for a great education, to secure the future of tomorrows leaders.

The phrase “thinking outside of the box” has helped shaped my life and the person that I have become. I am now called the youngest person in the world to have (at age twelve) self-produced a film that showed in movie theater chains. This film that I made showed in theaters overseas for free, so that children in the countries could afford to go and see it. With my education projects campaign to get more girls into schools, I have spoken to over 26,300 youths in many developing countries like Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Mozambique, about the importance of staying in school, and have addressed over 30,000 youths in Europe about the needed to fight for education funding for African countries. I have sat one-on-one with [28] Presidents and Prime ministers to talk about policies that could help get more girls into schools in developing countries, and have spoken at institutions like the United Nations, UNESCO, COP 23, and a global youth conference in Paris. I get invited to speak at these global events, because my approach to solving problems connects with many adults across the globe.

If I had never applied the phrase “thinking outside of the box” to my life, I may never have entered the History channel competition, or travelled to Ghana for my primary sources, or taken up filmmaking to tell stories. I may never have met with the [28] world leaders to discuss pressing global issues, or spoken on the global platforms that I have, all of which show the world that an educated girl can indeed, change the world. I just can’t imagine where I would be if I wasn’t doing these things. I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t applied the simple belief and process, of “thinking outside of the box”.