The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls was opened this month near Johannesburg, South Africa, to much media fanfare and plaudits. But there was also criticism, from both South Africans and Americans, that a $40 million school was too lavish, too luxurious for poor black girls. The criticism hasn’t blotted Oprah’s escutcheon. She’s said, “When I see these girls, I see me. They are the leaders of tomorrow’s Africa.”
Most of Oprah’s critics haven’t done what Bernadette and Tim Marquez did for Denver public school kids. Their $50 million initial endowment to create the Denver Scholarship Foundation will help eligible DPS kids go to college.
Oprah and the Marquezes have a hopeful and clear vision of the future. They understand that education is essential in these competitive times, and that wealth is only meaningful when shared.
Oprah’s American critics ask why she traveled to far South Africa to help; why not build an academy for poor inner-city American girls? Similar criticism has been leveled at Hollywood celebrities working to alleviate African poverty; their efforts have been unkindly dubbed “misery chic.”
The truth is that poverty and misery are a universal darkness that requires the light of kindness and charity to banish it. America’s poverty has known many helping hands; Africa’s has had relatively few patrons.
The few who have ventured there have found African children are like sponges, eager to soak up knowledge. They may lack material buildings and physical things, but they’re indomitable spirits with an incandescent desire to learn.
In the past, most of the West’s aid has either been big government projects that have bypassed the poor, or it has had a religious tilt, aiming more at the natives’ souls rather than teaching them how to build a better kingdom on Earth.
Oprah’s academy may be too costly, but the visionary idea behind it proves to other poor, shoeless girls in rural South Africa that they matter and have an amazing human potential. Oprah and her 150 students are a shining example of that. It’s the gift Oprah promised Mandela and South Africa. Her students and other young girls are seeds on Africa’s soil; they are tomorrow’s leaders.
Many of Africa’s problems can be blamed on male domination, abuse and sexual inequality. There is no better weapon against sexual violence than a good education.
It’s quite likely other Westerners will see the building of academic institutions in Africa as a way to combat poverty, ignorance, crippling corruption and tribalism.
I have kept my ears open to see if others in Denver will step up and join the Marquezes’ academic adventure. It hasn’t happened yet but I trust it will. You don’t have to be millionaires to build academies; they don’t have to cost $40 million. Harvard and Oxford begin at home with a family’s involvement in daily homework. Family is the kindling of the eternal fire of hope, ambition and high expectations.
Communities that spend energy and passion pointing at what Oprah didn’t do for them should instead be asking: What can we do to replicate here what she’s doing there? Pundits whose one strength is deconstruction feel that criticizing Oprah’s perceived sins somehow absolves them from acting in their own communities. They could easily outdo the Marquezes by building a leadership academy in every city in America. The result would be to grow a new generation of black leaders.
It’s my sincere hope that the millions raised in the future for Africa by the likes of Bono, Bob Geldof and others will go to building more real schools in Africa. Perhaps our next Million Man March will raise money to build academies for poor young boys and girls across America. The future requires full engagement of the able and intelligent.
Pius Kamau of Aurora is a thoracic and general surgeon. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.
