Famous American talk show host, actress and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey has been put into the position of defended her South African girls school in Johannesburg this week. Winfrey stated that mistakes have been made, but that the school remains extremely successful of providing the young women of this African city opportunities that were not available to them before, and perhaps would not have been for a very long time. The school, the Leadership Academy for Girls, opened two years ago in 2007. The school was intended to nurture students from deprived and depressed backgrounds and villages, and to provide them with the education necessary to be able to pursue university study and careers in the business world, the hotels Johannesburg is building, as well as those in the fields of medicine and technology. The forty million dollar institution, for which Winfrey paid for entirely, is equipped with science and computer labs, a theater and a library. As it stands the school began with just two grades, 7th and 8th, and just about 150 students, and is projected to grow into a combined middle school and high school, offering education to over 450 students, and serving those from 7th grade through to graduation from 12th grade. This will hopefully occur by the year 2011.
However, two scandals have brought the school, the teachers and the administrators and even Winfrey herself into question and under fire. One of the matrons of the dorms is currently on trial for allegedly committing acts of sexual misconduct and physical abuse. And during March of this year seven students were removed from the school, three of them suspended and the other four permanently expelled. Reports at the time stated that these girls were accused of forcing sexual contact upon their unwilling classmates. When the accused testified, they admitted to being conscious of the fact that what they had been doing was wrong, but they went ahead with it regardless. Even given the current situation, Winfrey states that many of the students are thriving and this was her own dream and also a promise she had made to Nelson Mandela, that the female children would receive the education and the opportunities that they so deserve.
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