Rania Zuri, the recent Morgantown High graduate who has garnered international accolades in her work for the advancement of literacy across the U.S. and the globe, just made the Forbes “30 under 30” list.
The publication annually recognizes 600 young entrepreneurs, innovators and influencers from the fields of healthcare, the arts, education, social media and more.
For Zuri, 18, it all started with intellectual diversion two years ago while she was still a student at MHS.
That’s when she started The LiTEArary Society, a club for kindred biblio-spirits who would gather to sip tea – hence, the wordplay of the club’s name – while digging into the classics.
Voltaire and Dostoevsky.
Jane Austin and Guy de Maupassant.
All the heavy, English major hitters, Rania said, who show that a narrative and character’s journey through it can be just as relevant in the 21st century, as it was in the 18th or 19th.
“The references and some syntax might change,” as she has said, “but the truths are universal.”
And turning pages of such works can only lift a person across the full academic discipline, she said – no matter the subject.
“If you can read, you can learn,” she said.
“Reading inspires critical thinking. You learn about people. You learn about the world.”
“World,” is the watchword for the society, which Zuri transformed into a nonprofit advocacy organization with a global reach.
Since its days as an esoteric club in school, the society, as noted by Forbes, has donated more than $300,000 worth of new books to needy youngsters in all 50 states, plus Jerusalem and rural India.
Plus, it boasts a roster of top-shelf corporate sponsors, including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and Scholastic Inc.
The summer before her senior year at MHS, she traveled all 55 counties in West Virginia to distribute books while meeting with each county director of Head Start, the federally funded social enrichment program launched in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson, as part of his War on Poverty initiative.
In October, she became the youngest person on the books to author a U.S. Senate resolution: the bipartisan effort that established Oct. 20 as National Early Childhood Literacy Awareness Day.
She has also been interviewed on Today and has presented a TED talk outlining her advocacy in recent years.
Zuri even has royal connections, these days.
This past July in London, she was recognized with the Diana Award – founded in memory of the late Princess of Wales by her sons, Prince Harry and Prince William for her love of the printed word.
Which is another watchword, she said.
“Love,” that is – which got her into all this.
Her love for reading has enriched her life, she said, and she wants to return the favor.
“We have a tagline: ‘Inspiring Future Bibliophiles, One Book at a Time.’”
Zuri enters Stanford as a freshman next fall.
