Oprah Winfrey: When You Save A Girl

When You Save a Girl

Manisha Dayananda
5/19/2013
5th hour: Honors English 9B

Oprah Winfrey once said, “I’m going to give them an opportunity to come to my school and be the leaders of Africa, and I’m going to do that one brick at a time. I’m building a girls academy.” These were Oprah’s first words that led her to start the goal that would forever change the lives of many girls. Oprah Winfrey, the world famous talk show host, has inspired many people with her own stories, thoughts, and actions. She has strong moral values and she shared her opinions about topics such as the importance of a respectable education and influential women with everyone through her talk show. She always looked for opportunities to change
Once the students graduate, they would be trained in decision making, critical and expansive thinking, social responsibility, and the rewards of giving back to one 's own community. They would become the new leaders of South Africa and lead their country and the world to peace, progress, and prosperity (Oprah.com). Oprah opened this school so that girls who had the desire to follow their dreams and become powerful people had the opportunity to do so. The students had many plans for their future: to become astronauts, teachers, and doctors to care for AIDS victims from where they lived; the ideas were endless. All the students had different dreams, but they all shared the desire to do something to help their community. Oprah once explained, "You know there are 250 million girls who are in poverty in the world, and the only we are going to change that is through education of those girls. And you know, when you save a girl, you save a family, you begin to save a community, you begin to really change the consciousness of the way a community operates, when you save a girl" (Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy). Oprah related to her own experiences here. As a child she faced many difficulties, but her education saved her. She accomplished so many things, she helped her community in so many ways, and it’s all because of her education. She now desired to help other girls do the same. She understood the phenomenon that happened when you save a girl because she firsthand personally experienced it. She also said, "This is an experiment really for the greater picture of what needs to be done in the world, and I wanted to prove to myself and to the world that it could be done. So I hold in my heart not only this vision for these girls, but I also hold the global vision for girls all over the world” (Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy). Oprah wished to