From ‘Good Trouble’ to Good Deeds: Zuri Adele's Inspiring Philanthropic Work

Actress Zuri Adele is best known for her portrayal of millennial Malika on the Freeform series Good Trouble.

Just like her character, Zuri is more than just an actress. She is also a philanthropist who uses her platform to give back to her community and advocate for issues close to her heart.

Zuri was raised between Brooklyn and the Bay Area and credits her parents for her artistic expression. She studied acting at Spellman College, UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, and the British American Drama Academy.

She got her first acting credit in 2013 for the CBS series Under the Dome and landed a few smaller roles before her breakout on Good Trouble.

However, she wasn’t only focused on her career. She also took time to teach acting at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

Education is important for Zuri, which is why she has focused her philanthropic gestures on the topic and she started the Zuri Adele Fellowship. As an HBCU alumnus, Zuri gives out annual awards to HBCU graduates in pursuit of postgraduate studies, including a Master’s in Fine Arts and other related programs at the UCLA campus.

The award specifically targets individuals enrolling for postgraduate programs in theater, TV, and film. She intends to extend this award to other universities. In addition to the UCLA grants and awards, she has also sponsored several developmental goals in Black colleges across the nation.

Zuri has been very proactive when it comes to helping the needy, especially those in disaster-prone areas of the world. She partnered with Concern Worldwide and the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance to donate relief materials to victims of flooding in Bangladesh, Kenya, and many other countries. Her kind gestures have made an impact on the betterment of lives in many low-income and poverty-ravaged communities in Eastern Africa.

Zuri Adele is not only involved in donating to charity causes, but she has also been an advocate for the inclusivity of under-represented people in the wellness and beauty spaces worldwide.

“Yoga and meditation were introduced to me most consistently during my theater training at Spelman, as a tool to warm up and connect with my body and voice,” she told JeJune Magazine. “They additionally became such effective and enjoyable tools for my physical and emotional well-being that I continue to practice (and lead) on my own and at studios and community centers in each place I live or travel to.

She has been the guest speaker at many symposiums and other events where she made a case for the inclusion of Black women in the health space. She advocates for the empowerment of minority groups to leadership positions where they can make more impact on lives.

“In order to create more accessibility to wellness for communities who have been historically marginalized and unsupported,” Adele told In The Know by Yahoo at the MAKERS Conference where she was a speaker, “we can lean into reparations, and we can start to create avenues of wellness that people who may not be able to afford their wellness practices can still come [to] and practice.”

Zuri has remained vocal about her desire to see the LGBTQ community gain more freedom and overcome the public stigma that has plagued them over the years. To this end, she partnered with other well-meaning celebrities who share her opinions and one of them is Sherry Cola.

The aim of launching the program is to help transgender people become more visible in the mainstream sectors of education, economy, business, and tech.

Though the “It Gets Better” movement is incorporated in the United States of America, members are being invited worldwide. Zuri Adele continues to push for trans people to discover their identity and find better ways of relating with the general public.