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Oprah Wninfrey Opens $40 million African Girls School

Oprah Winfrey has just spent $40 million on building the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls school, which is located in South Africa and took five years to be constructed. Oprah's school is designed for less fortunate teenagers who want an education. The school has twenty-eight buildings that include a beauty salon, indoor theatre and two hundred thread count sheets. She included pieces of tribal art and color tiles into the design of the school. Some may feel that she was going overboard with how much she included into the school but Oprah wants to give the girls the best so they can make a good start into the world. Oprah had decided that she was tired of writing out checks to various charities and wanted to help people directly herself. She wanted to feel a connection with the money she was donating. Some people may complain that she should be helping people in the States, although she has already donated millions of dollars to poor children in the USA but American children do not appreciate the need for education unlike the Africans and they already have a free education. American children ask for iPods, African children ask for uniforms so that they can go to school.

Over 3,500 children applied to join Oprah's school for the 152 places that were available and Oprah personally interviewed the final 500 candidates. Many of the children have had bad experiences such as suffering from HIV and Oprah avoided asking the girls about their backgrounds. She says, “If I didn’t find a way to separate my feelings, I’d have been crying the entire month I was in Africa.” She calls the school “the fulfillment of my work on earth.”