Tererai Trent facts for kids

Tererai Trent (born around 1965) is an amazing woman from Zimbabwe who achieved her dreams of education against many odds. Her inspiring story has made her famous around the world.

Early Life and Dreams

Tererai grew up in the village of Zvipani in Karoi District, Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe. When she was a child, she could not go to school. This was because her family was poor, and girls were often not sent to school. Her brother, Tinashe, went to school, even though he wasn't very interested in studying.

Tererai remembered men in her village, including her father, saying that boys were the future. They believed boys needed an education to support their families. Girls, they thought, would just get married.

Learning on Her Own

Even without going to school, Tererai was determined to learn. She taught herself to read and write using her brother's school books. She even started doing his homework, and she did it very well! Her teacher noticed how good the homework was. He asked Tererai's father to let her attend school.

Tererai went to school for a short time. However, her father soon arranged for her to marry. She was very young and had three children by the time she was 18. She did not have a high school diploma. Her husband did not support her dream of getting an education.

Burying Her Dreams

In 1991, a woman named Jo Luck from an organization called Heifer International visited Tererai's village. She asked every woman about their biggest dream. Tererai bravely said she wanted to go to America and earn three university degrees: a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a PhD.

Her mother encouraged her to write down these big dreams. Tererai wrote them on a piece of paper, put it inside a small tin, and buried it. This act showed how much she believed in her future.

Achieving Her Goals

In 1998, Tererai moved to Oklahoma in the United States with her husband and their five children. She worked very hard to make her dreams come true.

University Success

Just three years later, she earned her bachelor's degree in agricultural education. In 2003, she earned her master's degree. After earning each degree, Tererai returned to Zimbabwe. She would dig up her tin, check off the goal she had achieved, and then rebury it.

Tererai later married Mark Trent, a plant scientist she met at Oklahoma State University. In December 2009, she earned her doctorate (PhD) from Western Michigan University. Her research for her PhD focused on programs to prevent HIV/AIDS among women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa.

Global Recognition and Impact

Tererai's incredible life story began to inspire many people around the world.

Featured by Oprah Winfrey

Her story was shared in a book called Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in 2009. An excerpt from the book was also published in The New York Times Magazine.

Soon after, famous TV host Oprah Winfrey featured Tererai on her show. Oprah even sent a TV crew with Tererai back to Zimbabwe to film her digging up the tin with her dreams. Oprah Winfrey later said that Tererai Trent was her favorite guest ever.

Building Schools and Inspiring Others

After earning her PhD, Tererai worked with Heifer International, the organization that helped pay for her doctorate. In 2009, she also started her own foundation, first called the Tinogona Foundation, and later renamed Tererai Trent International. This foundation has built several schools in Zimbabwe, helping many children get an education.

In 2013, she earned another master's degree, this time in Public Health (Epidemiology) from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

In May 2011, Oprah Winfrey donated $1.5 million to Tererai. This generous gift allowed Tererai to build a school in her old village in Zimbabwe. The school was finished in 2014.

Author and Educator

Tererai Trent has also become a successful author. In 2015, she published a children's book about her own life called The Girl who Buried her Dreams in a Can. It was illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.

In 2017, she wrote a self-help book for adults titled The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Igniting Our Sacred Dreams. Oprah Winfrey wrote the foreword for this book. It won an award for being an "Outstanding Literary Work" at the 49th NAACP Image Awards.

Since 2013, Tererai has also been a professor at Drexel University. She teaches about monitoring and evaluating global health programs. Her journey shows that with determination, dreams can truly come true.