Namanya started a nursery to dodge a school transfer; today she owns an empire
Apr 08, 2016
She is also a director in Namanya & Company, a multi-million string of high quality furniture showrooms in Kampala. But life has not always been so rosy for Namanya.
Winfred Atwongire Namanya is the director of Elyon Kindergarten and primary schools in Mutungo and Nsangi in Kampala and Wakiso districts respectively with a combined student population of 1200.
She is also a director in Namanya & Company, a multi-million string of high quality furniture showrooms in Kampala. But life has not always been so rosy for Namanya.
Namanya started out teaching in Bweranyangi Girls Senior Secondary School, Bushenyi, in 1995 after graduating from university. After meeting her husband, she moved to Kampala where after a long while she finally got a teaching job and got on to the government pay roll again.
In 2003, the government started reshuffling teachers from one school to another. Afraid that a transfer could potentially disintegrate her family, Namanya decided against the idea of a transfer and effectively began looking for an alternative source of income in case she was ever transfered.
In Mutungo, a Kampala suburb, where the family lived at the time, they had a small extra piece of land (80ft by 70ft) which her husband had bought back in 1998. They grew crops like cassava and beans on the land.
Namanya came up with an idea of starting a small nursery school in that plot of land so that in case they transferred me, I would quit my job instead and run my nursery school. Find out how she systematically built her empire from that small neighbourhood nursery school in Pakasa Friday.
