Oprah Winfrey opened a school today for disadvantaged girls, fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 students a chance for a better future.

“I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty could dim that light,” Winfrey said at a news conference.

Mandela was among the guests at the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in the small town of Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg.

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

Singers Tina Turner, Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey, actors Sidney Poitier and Chris Tucker and director Spike Lee also were in attendance. Each guest was asked to bring a personally inscribed book for the library.

Winfrey has said that she decided to build her own school because she wanted to feel closer to the people she was trying to help.

The $40 million academy aims to give 152 girls from deprived backgrounds a quality education in a country where schools are struggling to overcome the legacy of apartheid.

Labels: Oprah Winfrey