Joan Countryman, of Providence, has just returned from several months in South Africa, where she helped to start Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — Joan Countryman knew the school she was helping to get off the ground, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy For Girls, was unusual in many ways, starting with its founder and its mission to educate future leaders of post-apartheid South Africa.

The opening of the $40-million boarding school in January received widespread coverage, much of which focused on the stars who attended, including Sidney Poitier and Chris Rock.

But Countryman felt the significance of the school when she realized the person speaking after her at the opening ceremony was Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of South Africa.

“The thought that he was there and part of the event was extraordinary,” Countryman said. “That day was magic.”

Countryman, a Quaker and former head of Providence’s Lincoln School, is accustomed to decidedly more sedate surroundings. But, she says, the nucleus of Oprah Winfrey’s academy is the same as that of the American schools Countryman has taught in for decades — a belief in the aspirations of young people and the desire to help them excel.

“I found that much more was the same than was different,” Countryman said Monday in an interview at her Benefit Street home. “Imagine a bunch of middle school girls running around a boarding school, and it was just what you’d think.”

At the same time, the students’ stories — all come from low-income families and many have lost parents to AIDS or have suffered sexual or physical abuse — differ greatly from the privileged circumstances of most of the students at The Lincoln School, a selective, all-girls school on the East Side.

The South African girls’ determination to better their lives and their country through education inspired Countryman.

“They came from challenges we can hardly imagine,” Countryman said. “The history of South Africa meant that this population was deliberately deprived of an education until 12 years ago [the end of apartheid in 1994]. For me, the most important thing is that you expect that they can achieve and you make that happen. It sounds a little simpleminded, but you have to start with the expectation that they can do it.”

Founded by billionaire media entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey, the boarding school opened Jan. 2 in Henly-on-Klip, a town about 40 minutes south of Johannesburg. The academy has 152 seventh and eighth graders and will add a class each year until it reaches 450 students in grades 7 through 12.

Countryman, 66, helped Winfrey interview potential students last summer. She also agreed to interrupt her year-old retirement to serve as interim head of the school. Her first job was to find a permanent head mistress. She and Winfrey agreed the ideal candidate would be an African who spoke at least one of the native languages and who had extensive experience in the U.S. school system. Countryman returned to her roots, selecting Nomvuyo Mzamane, a South African school administrator at Countryman’s alma mater, the Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia. Countryman was Germantown’s first black graduate in the late 1950s.

“She certainly was the one,” Countryman said. “Nomvuyo told me this was really her dream, to return to South Africa, and her commitment to the girls and South Africa and leadership education was strong.”

Countryman remained at the school through the first term, January through March, helping Mzamane schedule classes, create a curriculum and strengthen math and science instruction — an area she will continue to help with on an informal basis, said Countryman, a former math teacher.

A couple of dustups that made the news — including criticism of the extravagance of the school’s facilities, such as a yoga studio, and some parents feeling shut out when they couldn’t contact their daughters in the first days of the term, quickly calmed down.

“I think the school is well launched,” Countryman said. “It is a beautiful campus, but the girls do share a set of showers and toilets. Their dorm rooms are very pleasant and welcoming, but they are not very big.”

The heart of the 28-building campus is the library, Countryman said, and a large auditorium where Winfrey routinely communicates with the students via video conferencing.

While the academy is not religious, Countryman said many Quaker beliefs, such as respecting the dignity of every person and taking time for quiet self-reflection, are part of the school’s culture.

“There is a Zulu word, ubuntu, that means ‘I am because we are,’ that I can find my humanity in relationships to other people,” Countryman said. “And that strikes me as very similar to our principles in Quakerism, about respecting the light in everyone.”

Countryman left last month just as students departed for spring break. The South African school year has three terms and runs from January through December, with month-long breaks in April, August and December.

Leaving was hard, Countryman said.

“I had to come back to the U.S. in February for a few days and when I came back, I think I had 152 girls come and hug me,” Countryman said. “They are very gracious and warm and special. Certainly there were moments where I thought, ‘If I were in my 30s …’

“When you think of all that’s coming and that these young women are going to change their country ...”

But Countryman is also ready to spend more time with her family, architect husband Ed Jakmauh, her grown children, Rachel and Matthew, and four grandchildren.

“I am really ready to be a retired person,” she said.

She plans an active retirement.

Countryman is already being asked to speak about her experience in South Africa and says she wants to write about it. She serves on several boards, including Haverford College and The Providence Journal Co.

Countryman is also planning a family trip to the school in South Africa in July.

“Everybody wants to have a look,” Countryman said.

Countryman sees the experience as an unexpected opportunity at the end of a long and distinguished career, and one that has renewed her faith in the power of education.

“This opportunity has helped solidify for me why I think education is so important,” Countryman said. “How willing are we to dedicate ourselves to the education of our young people? I want to try to help people see why education is so important, how each of us can contribute. Oprah is an example of that, inspiring all of us to do what we can.”

jjordan@projo.com