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Oprah Winfrey: Schools
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Oprah says she decided to build her own school because she was tired of charity from a distance. "When I first started making a lot of money," she says, "I really became frustrated with the fact that all I did was write check after check to this or that charity without really feeling like it was a part of me. At a certain point, you want to feel that connection." But there's another reason Oprah has put so much, and so much of herself, into this school. Like her students, she grew up poor—truly a coal miner's daughter—with dim hopes for the future. She was raped as a girl and ultimately raised by her grandmother. To a certain degree, she is building this school for herself: the plucky girl who became one of the most successful women in the world yet still feels that pain.
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Winfrey invested $40 million and much of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls near Johannesburg in South Africa. The school opened in January, 2007. Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for others and for investing in the future of South Africa.[90]
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In a 1997 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Oprah encouraged viewers to use their lives to make a difference in the lives of others, which led to the creation of the public charity Oprah’s Angel Network in 1998. Oprah’s Angel Network has raised more than US$50 million, with 100% of the donations funding charitable projects and grants across the globe and has helped establish 60 schools in 13 countries, create scholarships, support women’s shelters, and build youth centers and homes—changing the future for people all over the world.
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As a young adolescent, Oprah often acted out and misbehaved; once she attempted to run away. After initially trying to place her in a juvenile detention center, Lee sent Oprah to live with her father, Vernon Winfrey, in Nashville, Tennessee. Winfrey's strict demeanor had a considerably positive impact on his young daughter. In her commitment to school, Oprah found success, winning awards for speech and debate and securing a college scholarship at the age of sixteen.
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Oprah is not a racist. The reason why more black girls attend the school is because it is based on income. If the parents make below a certain amount of money, then their daughter can attend the school. In South Africa, there are far more black people living in poverty than white people. More whites have the money to send their children excellent academies. Black South Africans don't have that kind of money.
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Winfrey made friends with the farm animals and, under the strict guidance of her grandmother, she learned to read at two and a half years old. She addressed her church congregation about "when Jesus rose on Easter Day" when she was two years old. Then Winfrey skipped kindergarten after writing a note to her teacher on the first day of school saying she belonged in the first grade. She was promoted to third grade after that year.
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