Joel Baraka, who grew up and attended school in the Kyangwali Refugee Camp in Uganda is the founder of My Home Stars, a nonprofit with the mission of making education accessible to refugee children.

He designed 5 STAZ, an educational board game that aims to get children excited about learning.

An engineer by profession, Joel was inspired by his father, who learned masonry craftsmanship despite no formal education. In college, Joel pursued a civil engineering degree and currently works as a project engineer with a general contractor in the U.S. midwest.

Joel's hope is that he can combine his two passions in education and construction engineering to re-imagine what better living conditions could look like -- both in terms of better housing and better education for communities such as the Kyangwali refugee camp where he grew up.

Since 2018 his team at My Home Stars has been on a mission to make quality education accessible to every refugee child in Uganda in the most fun and engaging way.

According to Joel, "We strongly believe that if education is to be impactful and meaningful to young refugee children, then it has to be fun and engaging.

Working with teachers we break down the primary school curriculum content into interactive modularized packages that children and teachers can easily engage with while having fun and learning.

To learn more, go to:

https://www.myhomestarsmhs.com/

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Podcast and Zoom Host: ⁠⁠Rushton Hurley⁠⁠

Podcast Producer: ⁠⁠Elton Sherwin⁠⁠

Audio edited and enhanced with: ⁠⁠Descript Studio Sound ⁠⁠ 

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