EXCLUSIVE: Oprah Talks About Her South African 'Dreamgirls'

ByABC News via logo
January 3, 2007, 7:58 AM

Jan. 3, 2006 — -- In South Africa on Tuesday, the curtain for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls parted for 152 girls in ankle socks.

They bring a history of so much suffering and so much hope for the future.

"You want dream girls? Take a look at these," said Oprah Winfrey, who made good on her pledge six years ago to Nelson Mandela to build the school.

Half the population of South Africa lives in poverty, a quarter of the people have HIV, and there is an epidemic of violence among girls.

Still, for some in the country, Winfrey's school, with its amazing theater, beautiful library and African art everywhere, seems "too much."

Critics inside and outside the country have asked, in a land with this kind of poverty, how can you spend more than $40 million on one school?

"I did love that the minister of education for this entire country stood up and said, 'I'm going to address the criticism. Is it too much? No, it isn't,'" Winfrey said in an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer for "Good Morning America."

Winfrey said she got resistance from the very beginning, even from the school's architects.

"The resistance was too much," Winfrey said. "'What are you doing? What do they need all that room for? Why does a girl need all that closet space when she has no clothes?' That's what they first said to me."

"And my idea was to understand, yes, you come from nothing, but oh, what a something you will become, if given the opportunity," Winfrey said.

Most of the girls who were admitted to the school have come from very little -- no running water, no electricity, many of them studying by candlelight.

They are still the best in their class.

At Tuesday's opening ceremony, one irrepressible girl named Losego said, "I went through hell and high water to come to this school."

Winfrey, who will stay very involved with the school and even teach leadership classes, said she believed the future was unimaginably bright for all of the girls.

"Somebody asked me, what do I think will happen or what do I imagine for them. I don't. I don't imagine. I can't imagine what it's like to have a miracle like this. It's just a miracle," Winfrey said.