Caring 4 Carrie (C4C) Kidney Advocacy Scholarship

“Grandma, tell me that story about how you met Bob Marley” “Tell me about Jamaica in the 80s again” “Grandma, you did what?!” Growing up, the number one way me and my grandmother bonded was by sitting down and listening to her eloquent stories. Through my grandmother’s storytelling, I became enamored with storytelling and wanted to tell my own stories. At the age of fourteen, I decided that I specifically wanted to tell my stories through filmmaking because anything is possible in a cinematic world. Years later, I am now a rising senior and film major at Spelman College. I am in the Spelman College honors program, director of over 15 short films, have been a finalist film director in numerous film festivals, fluent in three languages and I am Cum Laude at Spelman College. My grandmother was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease right before the pandemic. We were told that she would need dialysis for the rest of her life because her body could not handle kidney transplant surgery. Seeing my grandmother constantly in pain, unable to come to family reunions, Thanksgivings, Christmases or my graduation ceremony left a hole in my heart. Very soon the only time I saw her was in hospitals where I always cried at how swollen her body was from the lack of blood flow. My grandmother soon passed away in 2023 and her passing was a devastation for our entire family. I cried every night asking God “Why did she have to leave the earth in so much pain?” While mourning her loss, the Spirit led me to use her passing as fuel to do something positive in someone else’s life. My grandmother was the type of person to give you the clothes on her back when all she had was rags. I decided that I wanted to do something to channel my grandmother's generous and kind spirit after her passing by studying abroad. In 2023, I studied abroad for a semester in Accra, Ghana in Spring 2023 with New York University. At first, I was daunted by this opportunity since I did not have the financial means to fund this trip. Thankfully, my semester abroad experience was fully funded by applying for study abroad scholarships and the Pell Grant for low-income students. While abroad, I continued to tell stories through film and wrote the script for a film about the mass repatriation of Black Americans to Ghana. After this, I directed a movie about University of Ghana dance students triumphing over the challenges of a profession stigmatized in West African society. My grandmother battling kidney disease has taught me that when you are experiencing hardships in life, you can still make a positive difference in others. Even while in the hospital in severe pain, unable to move and fearing when her last day would be, my grandmother always put a smile on my face when I saw her. I want to continue to put a smile on other’s faces with my career in film directing and screenwriting. The Caring for Carrie (C4C) Kidney Advocacy Scholarship will go toward my tuition which will help my journey of spreading awareness of kidney diseases and being a role model in filmmaking for the generation of young girls after me. I plan to tell stories about other families and individuals experiencing kidney-related illness and show their stories and resilience. The honor of receiving The Caring for Carrie (C4C) Kidney Advocacy Scholarship can make it possible for me to help the kidney health community through filmmaking.