Story of Rya Kuewor, 29 years old man born and raised in Ghana and has been home schooled in his entire life.
Since childhood Rya dreamt of becoming a medical practitioner but this changed when he became homeless and had to beg for food and do menial jobs to survive.
Today, Rya is a refugee education and integration consultant with 6 years of working in higher and marginalised education in Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso, Singapore, and Kenya, and 4 years of working on refugee education with a special focus on societal integration. His passion for refugees stems from him having been homeless once, and never having been formally educated.
Rya Kuewor who speaks English fluently has revealed he started learning and speaking English till he was 7 – 8 years but began with his local language and now he has leant to be fluent in some other languages as well.
Rya has no formal education, and hence he has acquired no credited certificate but he has certificates from fellowships.
Rya has revealed he will home school his children but he will not be their teacher because he lacks the patients it requires and all.
Although Rya has not been to school before, he has lectured masters level students and he has been published by Forbes and The World Economic Forum.
Rya Kuewor, who has read 1700+ books by curtesy of home-schooling speaks 9 local and International languages, is a TEDx Speaker, and is a Fellow of the Amani Institute.
He has worked as a consultant for the Ghana Refugee Board through the Open University of West Africa, and also with a mobile education company in building and delivering entrepreneurship and healthcare courses to micro-entrepreneurs and secluded communities.
Rya has researched refugee societal and economic integration in the Krisan, Ampain, and Dadaab refugee camps.
Today, Rya co-runs RIO (Refugee Integration Organisation) in Ghana and Brazil, working with refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), and Persons of Concern (PoCs) and provides them with language and cultural courses, and scholarships for higher education in transferable skills.
His work promotes social inclusion and economic independence for refugees, IDPs, and PoCs in Africa and South America.
Rya revealed that he believes that personal innovation makes life more worthy of living. As a home schooled individual, Rya advocates for traditional education to be built on critical thinking and allowing for flexibility and freedom to act rather than “boxing people up into stereotypes”.
He is proud that hundred percent of what he does today is all earned from his home schooling. He appreciated his father who is his home teacher for being a strong part of his success today. He admits that his father was always home to support his learning and therefore advised parents who would want to home school their wards to make enough time to make it possible.
Listen to the podcast below as Rya Kuewor shares how being Home schooled has ignited his Passion and Career.