Julia Nompi Mavimbela was a schoolteacher and community leader in South Africa. When public schools were closed because of the 1976 Soweto uprising, Mavimbela taught schoolchildren in Soweto how to garden and how to read. Mavimbela later co-founded Women for Peace, an organization for women of all races to work for democracy in South Africa. In 1981 she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served in local church leadership.