Nangula Uaandja has spent decades breaking barriers, always gracefully and with purpose, but not always on purpose.
As the first black woman to register as a Chartered Accountant in Namibia, Nangula is the Country Senior Partner of PwC Namibia. But her life is about so much more than work; it is about faith, responsibility and overcoming adversities in life.
I grew up in the North of Namibia, just a few kilometres from the border of Angola. When I was 16, I crossed the border to Angola and went into exile, because I heard that you could get a good education if you did so. I stayed in Angola for a couple of months and then, through the Swapo Party, I was blessed enough to get a scholarship from the UNHCR to study in Sierra Leone, along with about ten other Namibian students.
Before I could finish Grade 12, however, civil war broke out in Sierra Leone. For those who saw the film ‘Blood Diamonds’, it’s based on the war in Sierra Leone. So when the rebels came I decided to go home.
My father was a businessman; At some point, because all his records were not in order, the Receiver of Revenue gave him this huge tax bill that he had to pay and I could see that the amount of tax that they charged him was much more than what the business was making. I started feeling like somebody needs to help my father, that perhaps it was my responsibility to study something that will help him with his business.
I applied to UNAM to study for a Bachelor of Economics degree and only when I started doing research into what kind of experts my father needed to help him with his business did I find out that there were chartered accountants. So I changed my degree to a Bachelor of Commerce.
I’ve always had this sense of responsibility. Life is a responsibility and I feel like I was created for a purpose. I’m here to make a difference, not to live for myself but to live for what God wants me to do.
I did feel that it was an accomplishment for women but also for black people because before Independence, black people were not allowed to become Chartered Accountants, so it was breaking that barrier. When you break that barrier, other people also realise that the barrier can be broken.
Yes, I am who I am today because of everything I’ve gone through. I look at it and say “God, why did we have to go through this? Why did I lose my son? What must I learn from it?” Today I actually see a lot. I’m not happy that I lost my son but when I looked at it, I think God used that incident to do a lot in my life and I believe that I am the person that I am today to a larger extent because of that incident, because it made me a different person. It changed my heart in the way I look at things in life.
