FEMFiles: Tererai Trent
Image via womenthatsoar.com
The thing about inspiration is that often, it’s overwhelming. It hits you in a way that makes your emotions swell, your mind begins to race at the overwhelm, and you can feel the hope that has now been firmly planted in your being. This is how I felt when I listened to Dr. Tererai Trent on the wonderful podcast Sounds Good by Brandon Harvey.
Her story is extreme. It is the version of inspiration and hope that can intimidate you to almost shy away from your own dreams and yet challenge you to hope at the same time to say. Just keep telling yourself ‘if she can overcome THAT, then this is not going to stop me.’
Born when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, Dr. Trent tells a story of seeing and living a cycle of poverty and limitation specific to women, describing it as a relay race where they continuously pass the baton to their daughters. Like her mother and grandmother before her, she was married young, a mother of 4 by the age of 18. She barely received an education. She was married to an abusive man for a bride price. Until she met Jo Luck of Heifer International in 1991, she was stuck ‘passing the baton’ of poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity to her children - particularly her daughters. But, she had HOPE. Dr. Trent credits Jo with lighting the fire that broke the perpetual relay of poverty and started her educational path by simply telling her that her dreams of an education were ‘achievable.’
8 years (8 years!!!!) after that moment, still living the life of a dutiful wife to an abusive husband, with young children to care for, she managed to get her GED. But that wasn’t enough. The dreams she held to go to America and to study until she got a PhD were still on a list she had written, and buried in the earth, following a tradition that her community had followed for generations. Normally though, it was the umbilical cord of a new born that was buried - tying the child to its community, its roots and mother, while also giving it the space to ‘grow.’ Dr. Trent took her mother’s advice, wrote her dreams, and buried them. But before she did, her mother inspired her to add one last item to her list. Her mother advised her to get her education, but to use it to give back to her community.
Dr. Trent achieved her goals, at times even digging up the list to cross off the dreams she had achieved. And now, (with a bit of help from Oprah!), she continually gives back to her community, giving young women the access and opportunities she didn’t have, the choices she couldn’t make, and the ability to leave the baton behind by building schools. She is an author and inspirational speaker and someone who helps us all realize that we can overcome, and elevate, so long as we continue to hope.