HENLEY-ON-Klip, South Africa-was raised by his grandmother Mpumi Nobiva in an environment that is beset by poverty and crime after his mother died of AIDS. Now one of the first to graduate from the school of Oprah Winfrey, she is to go to College in North Carolina.
Winfrey spent $ 40 million to provide her children with campus computer and science lab, library and fitness centre. Do not pay dues. Students who are high achievers, often from the communities in which schools are struggling to overcome the legacy of apartheid.
And as the school year South Africa near the end, all members of the 72 school graduating class has been accepted to universities in South Africa or the United States. More than a dozen have received full scholarships.
"First class, class I, will prove that," said Nobiva, 18, who will be studying visual art and performances of Johnson c. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Winfrey will be at school to graduation in January, school officials said Wednesday as students gathered to reflect on their experiences during the last five years.