Alpha Akariza
An Abundant Discovery
Alpha Akariza
FOUNDER OF DISCOVERY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Alpha always knew her mother valued education, but the depth of her conviction became abundantly clear when she sold her house to cover her children’s tuition costs. As a stateless, single mother of four, she did whatever was necessary to help her children thrive.
Growing up, Alpha was committed to justifying her mother’s sacrifices. After being raised in Kenya and Uganda, Alpha completed her undergraduate degree in South Africa before moving to the UK for her master’s degree. Her mother had paved the way for Alpha to dream, and Alpha dreamt of living a life of impact. She just wasn’t sure how.
Shortly after completing her education, Alpha moved to Rwanda. Her grandparents had fled 49 years earlier, but after settling in her mother country, Alpha felt like she finally had a place she could call home. Alpha earned challenging and rewarding job opportunities with Edify International and the World Bank, where she provided business advisory services for school founders and entrepreneurs. As her global outlook expanded, her understanding of where she came from deepened. She hoped that her work was making an impact in Rwandan communities that went beyond data collection and multi-page reports.
In 2011, Alpha got married and started a family. While her own family grew, she was committed to helping Rwanda rebuild. She was a working mom, advancing in her career, and invested in her church.
Everything changed during a lunch meeting in January 2015. Alpha was connecting with a friend who asked, “what do you want to do with your life?”
It wasn’t a new question, but at that moment, Alpha had unexpected clarity: start an elite, holistic, and transformational primary school in the heart of Kigali.
Education had played a critical role in her life, but as she prepared to send her young sons to school, the quality of local education was no longer an abstract challenge – it was an urgent need.
She began to share her mom’s conviction – the same conviction that led her to sell her house to cover tuition fees. But, thanks to her mom’s sacrifices, Alpha was in a position to pursue more ambitious goals: “When I was a child, my mom was just hoping that I would have a few basics and go to a good school. Now I’m hoping that my children can be the best that God made them to be.”
Alpha wanted her sons to be equipped to succeed anywhere in the world, whether it’s Kigali, London, Seoul, or the Silicon Valley. She wanted a world-class educational experience that went beyond basic literacy and prepared her sons for Christ-centred impact.
This fledgling vision energized Alpha, and after that lunch meeting, she created the first draft of a business plan for a new school in Kigali: Discovery International School.
Investors supported Alpha’s vision and she acquired land to construct a new facility. Discovery was becoming real, but Alpha didn’t know if she was ready. She says, “I never thought that I’d start a school. I always felt really sorry for people who started schools because they juggled so many pressing challenges. I worked with plenty of courageous edu-preneurs and I didn’t consider myself quite the entrepreneur.” In that season of uncertainty, Alpha joined the Abundant Leadership Institute.
As a member of ALI’s first cohort, Alpha says, “the Abundant Leadership Institute was so empowering for me because it...demystified what it meant to run a school.” She got to hear her classmates, including veteran school leaders, share their experiences every day. These relationships extended beyond the classroom. As Alpha continued to move Discovery forward, she would call fellow ALI students like Fred Buyinza, Stephen Rudakemwa, and Beatrice Bamurange. They would provide practical information and encourage Alpha in her journey.
Alpha’s ALI experience directly informed Discovery’s identity and values. Alpha says, “our values were all ideas that I learned at the Abundant Leadership Institute.”
The first element of ALI that Alpha carried into Discovery was the importance of relationships. Alpha says, “I learned through ALI that relationships are life-giving, and for the work that we do, you actually need that abundant life to be at work every single day… I want our team here [at Discovery] to experience the life-giving elements of community that I experienced at the Abundant Leadership Institute.”
The second carryover from ALI was the importance of an abundant mindset. “From the Abundant Leadership Institute, I knew that we wanted to have an abundant mindset and to see that our staff are at the centre of...defining it, of delivering it and being accountable to keeping our promises to the children.” By defining her guiding values, Alpha established Discovery’s mission statement: empower children to become grounded and thoughtful leaders who will transform Rwanda and the world. When kids leave Discovery, Alpha’s goal is that each child has a love for learning, a passion for excellence, and strength in character. Realizing this dream will make an unquantifiable impact across the nation and beyond.
By the time Discovery opened its doors to its first nine students – a few months before her ALI graduation – Alpha felt empowered to pursue her God-given vision for transformation. Today, Discovery International School offers an internationally certified education to 360 students ages 2 to 11. Each student is supported by a team of 55 educators from around the world who are experts in 21st-century pedagogy.
Alpha has had to overcome many challenges as a Christ-centered servant leader to reach these milestones. The biggest challenge began in 2020 when schools shut down across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Alpha prepared to transition to online learning, she was burdened by questions: ‘how do you increase a five-year-old’s literacy digitally?’ ‘what’s the best online platform?’ ‘how do you pivot and train staff?’ Parents were frustrated, and in the pandemic’s first few months, Discovery lost 40% of their students and lowered tuition fees. Alpha was overwhelmed, but her team displayed the abundant mentality she had initially shared with them. Together, they developed a cutting-edge online learning experience that integrated Discovery’s values. Teachers helped parents buy in, and due to the staff’s adaptability, Discovery eventually recovered to its pre-COVID numbers.
As Alpha looks to the future, her motivation to multiply impact is unwavering. She says, “I think it’s why we exist: to continue to bring life – the godly life, the abundant life – and healing into the communities that we come from.” For her, the ability to make an impact rises and falls on servant leadership: “We have to continue believing in servant leadership and nurturing it and watering it until we have seen transformation bit by bit, step by step.” It’s what her mother modeled so Alpha could go to school, and today, it’s what Alpha is modelling while empowering Rwanda’s children to also live lives of servant leadership. She knows that if she’s successful, a much larger dream will come to fruition:
“If one-by-one, in different countries in Africa, in different communities where people are suffering, people would rise up and serve beyond themselves… I think we will see the Rwanda we dream of, the Africa we want, and the healed and transformed communities that we all pray for.
I don’t think we can afford to hope otherwise. You just have to continue to seek to do right. To continue to seek to serve.”
