Behold the Queen

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls will cost just over R5 million a month to maintain - but it will never "in the next 100 years be for one day a burden on the government of South Africa".

The R300-million school, for girls from poor backgrounds who show exceptional academic and leadership potential, opened to great fanfare in Henley-on-Klip, Gauteng, on Tuesday.

Academy chief operating officer John Samuel said this week that the queen of talk had committed herself to creating an endowment fund to ensure that the school operates for as long as it can. He said the academy was like a little community that needed a range of support services to run effectively, and "we are ensuring that the well-being of the girls, which is a prime consideration, is met".

"We have outsourced the catering, maintenance and security to a private company. This is because we wanted to make sure that the environment was secured for the girls, as we have taken that responsibility from their parents."

--- Five million Rand (ZAR) is around $693,000 USD. Over half a million a month running cost. Catering, maintenance, and security outsourced to an unnamed private company.

What does "private company" mean? I hope it's not Wackenhut Corp.

There are 2 full-time psychologists at the school and HIV testing, with parents' permission, meaning more or less mandatory.

From another article : Winfrey's academy offers a way out for the 152 girls, aged 11 to 12, who were selected from 3,500 applications across the country ... Eventually the academy will accommodate 450 girls. Many were interviewed by the celebrity, who was reported to have been moved by visits to some of the girls' homes, a reminder of her own poor beginnings.

"These girls deserve to be surrounded by beauty, and beauty does inspire," Winfrey told Newsweek. "I wanted this to be a place of honor for them because these girls have never been treated with kindness. They've never been told they are pretty or have wonderful dimples. I wanted to hear those things as a child."

--- Oprah cannot know that all "her girls" are kindness starved and compliment deprived, or was that one of the interview questions? Surely some had kind loving parents who inspired them or they would not have been among the 3500 applicants.

Oprah when asked why she chose Africa for the school, rather than a US inner-city, replied she was frustrated with America's urban youth, i.e. they didn't want to learn, they didn't appreciate "free" education, they just want iPods.

South Africa's "free education" for its 1 million Black school children is experiencing the same problems as the US "free education" system : Lack of facilities, books, etc., high level of violence and crime, high unwed teen pregnancy rates, joblessness … in fact a close look at South Africa and lawlessness and I'd rather walk alone at night in Southside Chicago than Johannesburg or Soweto.

Must be awful for Oprah – after givin' up on America's urban youth - havin' to go halfway 'round the world to handpick a hundred or so 12 y/o girls who know how to appreciate a swanky education in state of the art surroundings – minus the iPod of course.

Well, in truth ... not all that swanky - aside from the yoga studio, beauty salon, indoor and outdoor theaters - the bedsheets were only 200 thread-count, even Wal-mart has better.