- Founder/CEO, My Home Stars
- Age: 26
Joel Baraka and his family fled from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. Baraka wasn't yet a toddler when his family arrived in Uganda as refugees.
A scholarship brought Baraka, who recently turned 26, to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he now serves as the founder and CEO of My Home Stars. The nonprofit works to fight for the educational opportunities of underserved communities in Uganda.
Baraka attended school as a refugee, being careful to keep his grades high. His teacher oversaw a classroom of nearly 200 students, Baraka recalled in a TED Talk. The average ratio of teacher to students in such refugee schools is about 1 to 154, Baraka told Madison's WMTV.
Attending high school in Johannesburg, South Africa, Baraka began thinking of ways he could help refugee students back in Uganda. One thing that centered him was his love of games, including European football and Spades.
Baraka eventually left for the U.S. to study civil engineering on a scholarship to UW-Madison. In addition to working full time as a project engineer for Milwaukee construction firm CG Schmidt Inc., Baraka co-founded My Home Stars with Anson Liow, another Wisconsin alum.
The nonprofit is guided by a vision to help students in Uganda and, later on, across sub-Saharan Africa. The product at the center of the organization's efforts is an educational board game, the 5 STA-Z, which is read as the "five stars." The game is meant to help combat a serious education problem in Uganda.
According to My Home Stars' website, Uganda hosts over 1.4 million refugees, 800,000 of which are children. Only 41% of those children attended school in 2017. The burden and affect of the pandemic only further escalated these challenges.
Baraka said he hopes his star-shaped plan will change the game. 5 STA-Z is meant to be played by a corresponding group of five students, allowing teachers to more easily monitor a large body of students. The game quizzes students on English, mathematics, science and social studies. It should align the more traditional classroom instruction students receive in the mornings.
"No matter where you're from and the current existing circumstances," Baraka said in his TED Talk, "we can all reach for the stars."
The young professional has delivered 1,000 game packages to five primary schools, reaching over 5,000 students.
