Former South African president Nelson Mandela hailed talk show host Oprah Winfrey as a benefactor to the disadvantaged as she opened a girls' school near Johannesburg on Tuesday.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley-on-Klip, South Africa, was built with a $40-million US donation by Winfrey.

U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey and students at her Leadership Academy for Girls cut the ribbon to open the school on Tuesday.
(Denis Farell/Associated Press)

Winfrey took a hand in every stage of the school's development, from design of the campus to selection of the 152 students.

"I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty could dim that light," Winfrey said.

The opening on Tuesday was attended by singers Tina Turner, Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey, actors Sidney Poitier and Chris Tucker, director Spike Lee and Mandela, the former anti-apartheid fighter.

Winfrey promised Mandela six years ago that she would create the school.

"This is a lady that has, despite her own disadvantaged background, become one of the benefactors of the disadvantaged throughout the world," Mandela said.

Winfrey said she hoped she could "change the face of a nation" by offering a quality education to girls who are raised in poverty.

Winfrey made a promise to build the school six years ago to Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, shown here in 2003.
(Canadian Press)

In remarks at the gala opening, she referred frequently to her own disadvantaged background.

"I was a poor girl who grew up with my grandmother, like so many of these girls, with no water and electricity," said the host of the influential Oprah Winfrey Show.

Guests to the gala were asked to bring a book for the school's library.

Winfrey said she was grateful that she had an opportunity for a good education and welcomed the chance to see bright young women develop into leadership roles in South Africa.

She hailed the attitudes of many of the 11- and 12-year-old girls she interviewed personally before accepting them to the school, saying they seem to value education in a way that North American children no longer do.

The school received 3,500 applications from girls around the country. It accepted 152 students to start, but will eventually take 450.
 
The 28-building campus has computer and science laboratories, a library and theatre, sports facilities, a wellness centre and beauty salon.

Winfrey worked initially with the South African government on the project, but the government backed out of the project, apparently thinking that the talk show host's plan for the campus was too lavish.

"These girls deserve to be surrounded by beauty, and beauty does inspire," Winfrey said in an interview with Newsweek.

Lost family to AIDS

South Africa's state-funded schools are overcrowded and lack even basic necessities such as books. They also are plagued by gang violence, drugs and a high rate of pregnancy among schoolgirls.

Many of the girls have been raised in the poor townships around Johannesburg and have lost family to AIDS.

"Girls who are educated are less likely to get HIV/AIDS, and in this country which has such a pandemic, we have to begin to change the pandemic," Winfrey said.

Winfrey has taken a great interest in South Africa's post-apartheid development and said the school was a way to feel closer to the people she was trying to help.

"When I first started making a lot of money, I really became frustrated with the fact that all I did was write cheque after cheque to this or that charity without really feeling like it was a part of me," she said.

With files from the Associated Press