As a young girl in rural Zimbabwe, Tererai Trent lived without running water and electricity and had no hope for her future. "I remember very well my father pointing to my brothers and the other boys in the village and saying: 'These are the breadwinners of tomorrow. We need to educate them. We need to send them to school. The girls will get married,'" she says. "And that was just a painful experience for me."

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Desperate to learn, this little girl with big dreams secretly did her brother's homework. "I learned to read and write from my brother's books," she says. Soon, Tererai's secret was exposed, and the teacher begged her father to let her learn.

Tererai attended only two terms before she was forced to marry at age 11. By age 18, she was the mother of three. "When my husband realized that I wanted to have an education, he would beat me," she says. "I have nightmares of that time of my life."

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