School spirit comes easily for 17-year-old Nia Dailey, deputy head girl at the Berkeley Institute.

“It’s my last year here and I’m going to miss it so much — it’s like my second home,” said Nia.

The Pembroke student takes such pleasure in volunteering that she struggles to recall everything she’s involved in.

“When I first came here, my nana Patricia Holder was seen as a legacy here — she was a professor and an acting principal,” Nia said. “I always felt I had to live up to her, and after being here a while I came into myself. It’s good to give back to something that gave so much to me.

“When I started here, I never worked to my full potential and just wanted to goof around. My teachers and family had to push me. Looking back, I would never believe I would have been deputy head girl, let alone a prefect.”

Berkeley, she said, “helps you to become what you want to be”.

Nia sits on the school’s new prefect council, which supervises its prefects and debates fresh ways to make the school a better place — such as “being proactive instead of reactive”.

Another new fixture at the school is the breakfast club, providing meals to students who come to school hungry. Still seeking sponsorship, the initiative is “something we’re still working on”, she said.

Taking part in the peer helpers class assists Berkeley’s students in resolving their own disputes, and she involves herself in the mentorship programme for nearby Northlands pupils.

Nia plays in the marching band as well as the concert band, and takes part in a variety of sports, along with drama: she plays Captain Hook in next month’s production of Peter Pan.

Her ultimate goal is to study clinical psychology, but Nia hopes to gain more experience of the world through the Rotary Exchange Programme before moving on to college studies at Howard University or perhaps Spelman College.

Learning about life in other countries is “my true passion”, she said, and a year in a Latin American country could further her studies of Spanish as well.

Now in her S4 year, Nia acquired a deeper understanding through her volunteer work in Malawi with the Bermuda Overseas Missions.

She and other young Bermudians helped build houses for the residents of Muhiyo, a community hit hard by the Aids epidemic where many live at a subsistence level.

“I wish I could go back,” Nia said. “It was a beautiful place where people were so accepting, even though they didn’t have much. They were pure in their hearts.

“Here in Bermuda you have to look for acceptance. The people there loved unconditionally. It was the experience of a lifetime, an amazing experience, and we were glad to help.”