Institute of Development and Education for Africa (IDEA)

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Oprah Winfrey: The Indomitable Spirit & A Gift for Africa

Ghelawdewos Araia

Oprah Winfrey is the embodiment of goodness and a blessed woman destined to donate her love and her money to African children. If Oprah had lived several centuries in the African past and happen to be part of the Southern Africa mythology, she would have been named Hakata (sacred dice). Among the Bantu of Southern Africa, especially among the people of Zimbabwe, legend has it that the Hakata was sought and consulted whenever drought, famine, and pestilence struck.

In post-Apartheid South Africa, there is no famine of national proportions but poverty is still widespread and AIDS (the modern pestilence) has killed thousands of people and we have witnessed orphanage unparalleled in the history of Africa. The South African orphans, this time, were not desperately seeking Hakata. They may have tried, but their efforts could have resulted in the proverbial mountain that would not come to Mohammed and instead the latter goes to the mountain. Luckily, however, the Hakata (Oprah) went on a pilgrimage from Chicago to South Africa. It is for this apparent reason that the girls of South Africa were jumping and stomping when Oprah arrived at their doorsteps and reassured them by saying, “this is where I belong; I can feel it in my blood.”

When Oprah announced her plan (building a dream) of establishing Leadership Academy for Girls, she confidently asserted, “When you change a girls life, it is not just that life… you start to affect a family, a community, a nation. I am telling you, women are going to change the face of Africa.” Moreover, Oprah stated, “From the very beginning I said to Nelson Mandela, ‘I want to create a school for smart girls who will lead this country to glory’.” What a blessed heart!

Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls is not only historical and symbolic but it also happened when most of African nations are seemingly falling precipitously and the Hakata indeed arrived at a propitious moment. Oprah, in fact, is the denouement, or if you will the dues ex machina who appears at the end of a plot to solve a complex scenario and/or a complicated problem, and hence the realization of the Leadership Academy for Girls.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls is deliberately designed to represent African culture conceptually and structurally. Oprah indeed hired some five hundred talented professionals to embellish the campus with African art. The library of the Academy will house ten thousand books; the dormitories are simply impeccable and dazzling; the uniforms of the girls and other paraphernalia have already manifested the transformation of the lives of Academy residents; the girls’ morale is boosted to the maximum and their hopes are stretched beyond the horizon. I have also no doubt in my mind that the curriculum of the Academy would be a scintillating new frontier in education.

As an educator, ontologically, I have already sensed the knowledge-based program, the universe of discourse or the cognitive domain of education in the Oprah Academy. Most importantly, as it is implicitly stated above, the affective dimension of the Leadership Academy will have a profound impact not only on the minds of the girls but also on other African school children who would envy the new South African experiment.

As has been clearly attested during the opening ceremony of the Academy, the girls are psychologically affected by this magnificent initiative of the Hakata. Oprah already declared by saying, “I want to go to a place where opportunity is shut down,” and that is precisely what she did. The girls who were fortunate enough to overcome their debilitated livelihood and rundown neighborhoods were emancipated at long last and they were joyous. They were not only overjoyed and festive in their moods; they were also confident and seemed to have recently reclaimed their self-esteem. Interestingly, though, despite their background of abject poverty, their wit and mental alertness are unquestionably in place. Now that the Oprah chemistry is added to all this, the girls have begun aiming high.

After talking to one of the girls, Spike Lee uttered with awe, “she said she is going to be the president of South Africa and I believe her.” And with respect to Thando, who wishes to be an actress, Sidney Poitier, with a smile and astonishment on his face, said, “This child, she mesmerized me. She was poised and articulate…it was really remarkable.” Some of these bright girls are in fact cosmopolitan in their thinking and seem to know famous people of letters. For instance, Lesgo confidently asserts about her knowledge of Charles Dickens.

Oprah herself attributes “striking beauty and some kind of energy” to the young girls and she has also confidence in her “adopted daughters” because as she put it in her own words, the “girls understand the value of education.” Indeed, Africans, as a whole, have high regard for education but the wherewithal to undertake major educational programs is not available for the most part.

I wish I could multiply Oprah by fission or some sort of cloning (Alas! This could be immoral, but ‘so be it’ I would say) so that I can have hundreds (if not thousands) of Oprahs. This metaphor is a message to African leaders. I am calling upon them to salute Oprah and follow her footsteps. She is the Diaspora African Hakata and African leaders should play the role of continental Hakatas. This is not to imply that African leaders are doing nothing in the development of their respective nations; some of them have concretely implemented impressive educational and development projects, but the majority are either laid back or are indifferent to the welfare of their own people; and some have clearly demonstrated to the world that they are, contrary to prospering their nations, the antithesis of progress and have indulged themselves rather in stealing the public purse.