“Talent Is Universal, While Opportunity Is Not”

Nov 16th, 2009 12:00 PM UTC
By Virginia Simmons

Nicholas Kristof’s latest column focuses on Tererai Trent, a remarkable woman from Zimbabwe who overcame extreme poverty and a husband who beat her and will be receiving her Ph.D. from Western Michigan University next month. As Mr. Kristof puts it: “Tererai is a reminder of the adage that talent is universal, while opportunity is not.”

Below is the beginning of her story. You can read Kristof’s full column here.

Of all the people earning university degrees this year, perhaps the most remarkable story belongs to Tererai (pronounced TEH-reh-rye), a middle-aged woman who is one of my heroes. She is celebrating a personal triumph, but she’s also a monument to the aid organizations and individuals who helped her. When you hear that foreign-aid groups just squander money or build dependency, remember that by all odds Tererai should be an illiterate, battered cattle-herd in Zimbabwe and instead — ah, but I’m getting ahead of my story.

Tererai was born in a village in rural Zimbabwe, probably sometime in 1965, and attended elementary school for less than one year. Her father married her off when she was about 11 to a man who beat her regularly. She seemed destined to be one more squandered African asset.

A dozen years passed. Jo Luck, the head of an aid group called Heifer International, passed through the village and told the women there that they should stand up, nurture dreams, change their lives.

Inspired, Tererai scribbled down four absurd goals based on accomplishments she had vaguely heard of among famous Africans. She wrote that she wanted to study abroad, and to earn a B.A., a master’s and a doctorate….

Keep reading here.

TAGS: Education, Zimbabwe