Flavia Nampala has always had a passion for education. As a child, she would volunteer as a Sunday school teacher, and she dreamt about growing up to be an educator. After high school, Flavia’s path temporarily strayed away from education, and she ended up studying economics and sociology at the top university in Uganda: Makerere University.

Flavia started her career by serving as a Technical Assistant with World Vision before joining Pride Microfinance as a loans officer. Over seven years, Flavia received multiple promotions and eventually served as a branch manager. In 2006, Flavia returned to World Vision to launch a microfinance service facility.

Despite working in microfinance and community development, Flavia’s underlying passion for education motivated her to serve as a consultant, mentor, and trainer throughout remote areas of Uganda and in South Sudan. While offering consultancy services and working for World Vision’s Vision fund, Flavia decided to complete her MBA. Following her graduation in 2010, God pulled Flavia back towards her original passion: early childhood education.

Discouraged by the limited literacy in her neighbourhood, Flavia decided to start a reading club. She filled her garage with old couches and purchased secondhand books. Children soon followed. Her neighbours, excited about the progress they saw in their kids, asked Flavia to start a nursery school. Compelled by deep-seated purpose, Flavia decided to officially launch Bereans School in 2010: a Christian institution named after the Bereans who helped Paul after he escaped from Thessaloniki (see Acts 17:11).

Shortly after Flavia began teaching toddlers, older children from the area began arriving in her garage. Many of the kids were from dysfunctional families where alcoholism, drug addiction, and physical abuse were commonplace. Flavia could not turn down the opportunity to invest in these children and form a school that stimulated impact throughout the entire community.

In order to promote ownership throughout the neighborhood, Flavia hired her first staff members from the community. She also worked hard to offer bursaries for children whose parents could not (or would not) support their education. 

The transformation within these children was remarkable and Flavia began to host evening sessions for parents in order to promote change in families as well. She explains her philosophy by saying, “for us to have the right product out of the children, the home must be a reflection of what is happening in the school and [through these evening meetings] slowly these parents have begun to change.” 

Flavia has also been a champion for orphans in her community. From the very beginning of Bereans, Flavia located a local orphanage and brought in children to receive a quality education. Other children who have lost their parents while they are in school automatically receive a full scholarship so they can continue their education.

Every aspect of Bereans connects directly with Flavia’s personal vision for transformation: to promote community transformation by investing in children. At Bereans, children are equipped to live as the Bereans from Acts lived, as accountable people of noble character. People who are willing to work hard and go the extra mile. The official motto of the school is ‘Arise and Shine for the Glory of God’.

Alongside leading this rapidly growing nursery and primary school (it didn't stay in her garage for long!), Flavia is actively mentoring 30 kids between the ages of 10-18. She is taking them through a program she developed called ‘The Leader in Me’ and she hopes to engage with children at every age. Flavia is also highly involved in the church she has been attending since 1986 as a worship leader and member of Mother’s Union.

Flavia applied to the Abundant Leadership Institute (ALI) because she witnessed the impact it made in the lives of her friends who participated in the program. She said that “everything that they experienced was a ‘wow’ for me.” Flavia can only begin to imagine the devastating effects of 18 months without in-person learning for Uganda’s children, but she believes the answer to present and future challenges lie within the Asset-Based Community Development philosophy that is taught at ALI. She is already applying what ALI alumni have taught her and she can’t wait to complete the whole program. Flavia is also excited to connect with other ALI students who she can work with in accomplishing a shared vision. As Flavia shared, “this is not a job for one person. I need destiny helpers.”

Thank you for generously investing in Flavia's leadership journey!