International News in Brief

Winfrey’s School in South Africa Turns Out First Graduates

By The Associated Press — December 05, 2011 1 min read
Students perform a dance routine in honor of fellow students who will be the first to graduate from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in Henley-on-Klip, South Africa.
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Mpumi Nobiva, whose mother died of AIDS, was raised by her grandmother in a neighborhood in South Africa beset by poverty and crime. Now one of the first students to graduate from a girls’ school financed by Oprah Winfrey, she is headed to college in North Carolina.

Ms. Winfrey spent $40 million to give her girls a campus with computer and science labs, a library, and a wellness center. None paid tuition.

And as the South African school year nears its end, all 72 members of the school’s first graduating class have been accepted to universities in South Africa or the United States. More than a dozen have received full scholarships.

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A version of this article appeared in the December 07, 2011 edition of Education Week as Winfrey’s School in South Africa Turns Out First Graduates

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