Many famous stars have dedicated themselves as volunteers and humanitarians to changing our world for the better. Last time we brought you the story of David Beckham, the famous soccer player and today we bring you the second incredible story of the series to inspire you with her life story.

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and the greatest black philanthropist of all time. These designations are indeed accurate. Within the synergy that validates these definitions, we detect the strength of humanism. She received numerous honours and nominations, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, and was one of only a few people to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honour.

Oprah was born into poverty to a single teenage mother. She recalls all the life experiences and lessons her lovely grandmother taught her at a very tender age while living on a farm. These transformed and transfixed Oprah’s life of dreaming high and living with an aspiration of hope. By the age of seventeen, she had become an honours student and had won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant, which came with an offer for an on-air job at WVOL.

After facing various obstacles in life, she became the only black billionaire of the 20^th century.

Through her phenomenal talk show, Oprah became a household name in the 1900s. She’s one of the most influential people in the world to date. Though she was criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas and having an emotion-centred approach, she has been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. The Wall Street Journal coined the term “Oprahfication,” meaning public confession as a form of therapy.

Her influence is in her personality, enriched through her womanhood, inspired through her service, directed through her purpose, and illuminated through her responsibility and leadership.

Her success as a talk show host also provided much-needed, high-impact media visibility for LGBTQ+ people to make them more mainstream and especially socially acceptable.

She founded the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation (OWFC) in 2010 to support children, families, and communities, with a special focus on youth education.

Its mission is to lead, educate, uplift, and empower women and children throughout the world. OWFC also supported a large number of families struggling to buy food, pay rent, and find health care during the pandemic. Oprah has also funded battered women’s shelters and campaigns to catch child abusers. There are millions of people around the world who are grateful to this industry trailblazer and Oprah Winfrey.

Through hard work, perseverance, dreams, and discipline, she was able to read and understand the lines between poverty and comfort. It’s not surprising that today not only is Oprah identified by her wealth but also by her tenaciously and countlessly reaffirmed convictions of humanity as well. Her enormous contributions to humanity will always be celebrated and honoured.

So, we as Rotarators have immense lessons to learn from her life story, especially to give hand in enhancing literacy among children as well as elders as the first step to community development. More than that we need to continue contributing to reestablishing humanity which is diminishing in this rapidly developing world overcome by technology. Her personality signifies that gender cannot be and should not be a hindrance to achieving your ultimate purpose in life and that we need to respect every individual in society disregarding class, status and position.

“Our goal must be decency and respect for every human we encounter.” -Oprah Winfrey

Written by: Rtr. Sathmi Dinanja

Graphic design by: Rtr. Supun Tharaka