Thando Dlomo was one of the first girls to attend the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and ended up getting a master’s degree at the University of Southern California…
Southern California, United States of America (14 May 2019) – Thando Dlomo is a graduate of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and credits Oprah Winfrey for changing her life completely.
In 2007, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG) opened in South Africa, giving educational opportunities to bright, intelligent girls struggling with poverty in the area. It was during her visit with the late Nelson Mandela in December 2000 that Oprah pledged to build a world-class school for girls in South Africa. Two years later, on 6 December 2002, Mandela and the then Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal, joined Oprah to break ground on the site of the Academy – located in Henley on Klip in Gauteng province.
Through a generous personal donation made by Oprah, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation (OWLAF) contributed more than US$40 million towards the Academy’s creation, and in January 2007, the Academy officially opened its doors to girls in Grades 7 and 8.
The inaugural class of 72 girls graduated in 2011, and have since gone on to achieve great things, like furthering their studies at such top universities as Harvard and Oxford. Thando Dlomo was one of those girls and ended up getting a master’s degree at the University of Southern California. She also now works at Entertainment Tonight as a digital associate at ET Live.
She recently sat down with Entertainment Tonight to discuss the impact that OWLAG and its founder, Oprah Winfrey have had on her life.
“I dreamt a lot of things. I couldn’t imagine what they looked like, but in my dreams, I have seen this room before,” she told ET’s Kevin Frazier on Wednesday.
“Literally, [Oprah] turned my whole life around.”
“How do I even say thank you to this woman? It is so hard to figure out how to thank her and figure out what will suffice because thank you just doesn’t feel like it is enough.”
Dlomo, now 25, recalled “idolising” Winfrey before being accepted to the Academy telling ET that she “flipped” out when she met the media mogul for the first time… now, however, they’re like family.
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Dlomo called Winfrey her “comfort through everything,” including the death of her mother.
“I go to OWLAG, and she is there, I lose my mom, she sits there, literally holds me like a kid in her arms and tells me it is going to be OK. I go to the U.S., and she is like, ‘You are far from home now, but I’m here, and you are going to be OK,'” she shared.
“She walked me at my high school graduation, my undergrad graduation, and my master’s graduation, so she literally is always there.”
Watch a clip from the exclusive interview below
Or head over here to read the entire interview.
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