Lupita Nyong’o has amazed 40 students with $10,000 scholarships.

The famous actress appeared at NAACP’s ACT-SO Awards recently and presented the scholarships to students who participated in the year-long programme aimed at high school students across the United States, which promotes advancement in subjects like business, visual arts, performing arts and culinary arts.

According to ABC’s report, she said on stage: “Since I was a child, I have always had big dreams, and my education has played a huge part in helping me realise them.

“I’ve always loved learning and I believe that learners change the world.”

The scholarships were funded via a partnership with cosmetic brand Lancome, which endorses Lupita among its brand ambassadors.

She added: “I am so thrilled to join Lancome, on behalf of their Write Her Future Scholarship Fund, to award this incredible group of women with these game-changing scholarships.”

Lupita, who was born to Kenyan parents, previously hailed her mother and aunts as her “idols” while growing up.

She said: “I grew up with a very strong and close family, so my idols were a lot of my relatives, especially my aunties and my mother.”

She went to cite classic films like ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘The Color Purple’ as memorable movies from her youth and noted that watching “dark-skinned” women like herself act had a “big impact” on her childhood.

She added: “When it comes to film and TV, I was madly in love with ‘The Sound of Music’. Fraulein Maria [played by Julie Andrews] was my idea of the perfect governess I wish I had.

“And then, of course, ‘The Color Purple’. I’ve talked about this a lot but [that movie] had a really big effect on me.

“Seeing Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and Akosua Busia, all these actors who look like me and doing this thing called acting, had a big impact on me and what was possible for me in the world of entertainment for someone like me.”

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