Dr. Tererai Trent

Dr. Tererai Trent is one of today’s most internationally recognized voices for quality education and women’s empowerment. Gifted with natural charisma that inspires people from all walks of life, Dr. Trent’s compelling story motivates people to fight for their own dreams, as well as the dreams of others, as she demonstrates in her new book, The Awakened Woman – Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams (Atria/Enliven Books), including a foreword by Oprah Winfrey.

Rooted in humble beginnings, Trent grew up in a cattle-herding family in rural Zimbabwe, in a country known as Rhodesia under colonial rule, where cultural practices and a war that liberated her country charted the course of her life. Due to traditional women’s roles and cultural norms, Trent did not have the opportunity to go to school. Undeterred, she still dreamed of an education and determinedly taught herself to read and write from her brother’s schoolbooks.

Despite being married young and having four children by the time she was eighteen, she never lost sight of her dreams. As a young mother without a high school diploma, Trent met a woman who would profoundly impact her life: Jo Luck, president and CEO of Heifer International. She told Trent, “If you believe in your dreams, they are achievable.” With this inspiration and her own mother’s encouragement, Trent wrote down her dreams of going to America for higher education, sealed them in a tin can, and buried them under a rock, ultimately redesigning the blueprint of her life.

A two-time guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Trent was named by Oprah as her “All-Time Favorite Guest” and received a $1.5 million donation to rebuild her childhood elementary school in recognition of her tenacity and never-give-up attitude. With the firm belief that education is the pathway out of poverty and a desire to give back to her community, Dr. Trent founded Tererai Trent International.

Currently an adjunct professor in Monitoring & Evaluation in Global Health at Drexel University, School of Public Health, Dr. Trent is a senior consultant with more than 18 years of international experience in program and policy evaluation, and has worked on five continents for major humanitarian organizations. As a fellow at the Center of AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UC San Francisco, Dr. Trent conducted research on HIV prevention in Sub Saharan Africa with a special focus on women and girls.

Today, Dr. Trent won the 2018 NAACP Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Instructional) for her latest book, The Awakened Woman—Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams. She is invited to speak all over the world, to share her remarkable story and the valuable lessons she has learned along the way. She was a keynote speaker at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit where she used her growing voice to appeal to international businesses to invest in equal access to quality education. Leading the global charge in the fight for quality education for all children and women’s rights, Dr. Trent has become a symbol of hope for everyone, and living proof that anything is possible. Her favorite motto is “Tinogona,” meaning, “It is achievable!”