Board Members

Gerald Huebner lives in Manitoba, Canada and is a charter member of the GHEC board.Gerald and wife Bev home educated their two now adult children through all fourteen great education years to graduation and now are enjoying four homeschooled grandchildren. Gerald and Bev have spent over 30 years in leadership of home education organizations and Gerald serves as the board chair of HSLDA Canada and the Canadian Centre for Home Education. Gerald worked for over 37 years in senior management of the agriculture department with the provincial government in the province of Manitoba. Gerald and Bev have shared their journey and experience with parents, government officials and others in over 12 countries around the world.

Debra Bell, Ph.D. is the best-selling author of the award-winning Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling, Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling Teens, and the Ultimate Planners for moms, teens, and students. Her articles on homeschooling have been widely published. She has been a keynote or featured speaker at numerous international and national venues for more than twenty years. During her homeschooling years, Debra founded three homeschool co-ops which continue today. A pioneer in online education, today she is executive director and lead teacher for Aim Academy, which provides online college prep and AP® courses for 7th-12th graders both stateside and abroad. Debra holds a bachelor’s of science in communications education, and a master’s degree in English. After homeschooling, she completed a Ph.D. in educational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. A former high school and college English teacher, Debra and her husband Kermit home educated their four kids K-12.

Mike is Senior Counsel and Director of Global Outreach serving HSLDA members in the states of Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, and West Virginia. And coordinates support of educational freedom around the world. He is an adjunct professor of government at Patrick Henry College teaching constitutional law.

Mike’s previous experience includes combat service during the first Persian Gulf War as a United States Army cavalry officer, private legal practice, and founding a nationally ranked internet marketing firm. He holds a juris doctorate with honors from the Boston University School of Law as a Paul J. Liacos Scholar and an LLM with merit in Constitutional and Human Rights Law from the London School of Economics. He is a member of six federal and state bars.

Mike is an internationally published writer and frequent speaker on homeschooling, educational freedom, parental rights, and human rights. He has appeared on national media and has written hundreds of articles including in The International Journal of Human Rights, Homeschooling in the 21st Century, International Journal of School Choice and Reform, Homeschooling in New View, Balancing Freedom, Autonomy, and Accountability in Education, Religious Freedom in Education, The International Journal of Religious Freedom, and Homeschooling in America and Europe: A Litmus Test of Democracy.

Alberto Solano is the coordinator of Home Schooling Guadalajara and frequent speaker for El Hogar Educador, a large homeschool association that serves Mexico and Latin America. He is the founder of a high-technology electronic components business called Latinrep, where he has been president for 24 years, through which he also seeks to propel digital design in Mexico. He is formally trained as an industrial engineer and holds a Master’s degree in Manufacturing Process and an MBA, with previous experience in corporations like Motorola, AMD and General Electric. Alberto and his wife Rosy, who holds a Bachelor’s in Administration, speak several languages and have had the privilege of experiencing different cultures. They are homeschooling their five children in this international mindset and worldview.

Edric is an edu-preneur (education entrepreneur), focused on home education, personal finance, and family life. He is President of Homeschool Global, with over 3,100 students across 30 countries. He is also an RFP and former Lead Anchor of the multiawarded ANC show “On the Money”. And finally, he is an active member of CCF where they help coach, mentor, and mount events for families. In 2016, he was nominated for the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) award. His new ventures include Cacao Farming as a social enterprise, and completing the Harvard Graduate S c h o o l o f E d u c a t i o n ’s C AE L (Certificate of Advanced Education Leadership) Program. He is involved in all this as his passion is to help change the world one family at a time.

Barbara West has been married for 36 years to Bruce West. Bruce’s almost 30 year military career has afforded them opportunities to live around the world in more than a dozen US locales and four overseas assignments – Stuttgart and Garmisch, Germany; Manila, Republic of the Philippines; Bucharest, Romania. Prior to that Barbara lived in the UK for 4 years. In addition to living around the world, they have traveled to 5 of the 7 continents. They have 5 children and have been homeschooling since the late 1980’s. Their oldest is an extremely successful medical sales and marketing district manager for 5 states. Their next is married with 2 children and is a missionary in Turkey. The last three are adopted from the Philippines and are currently being homeschooled. Barbara has worked at local, state, national, and international levels to help parents establish and maintain their right to personally direct the upbringing and education of their children. She has established homeschool organizations, speaks at conferences, and teaches workshops to encourage parents in their homeschool endeavors.

Liz Gitonga and her husband Patrice begun homeschooling about 17 years ago, becoming one of the pioneer Kenyan homeschool families. Liz has a great passion for education and describes her homeschooling journey as one that has been pivotal in shaping her views on education. She co-founded one of the first homeschool co-ops for Kenyans and has subsequently founded 2 other co-ops that continue to grow strong. She is a steering committee member of the East Africa Community of Homeschoolers (EACH), an organization that networks homeschoolers in the region. She is also an education consultant, providing training and guidance to homeschoolers, parents, and other educators. Her passion is to use her skill, knowledge and experience to contribute to the attainment of quality education among those living below the poverty line in sub Saharan Africa (who form about 70% of the total population), through initiatives that promote direct parental involvement in education.
Liz holds a Master’s degree in Education Psychology. They are blessed with 3 children, Gloria(20), Josiah(15).

Irina Shamolina is a member of the Board of the Global Home Education Exchange (GHEX), an Advisor on the Development of Home Education of the Chairman of the Patriarchal Commission for the Family, Maternity and Childhood Protection of the Russian Orthodox Church and director of the «Classical Conversations» homeschooling curriculum in Russia, founder of the «Classical Education» publishing house, director of the Russian language course of the Institute for Excellence in writing and the Lost Tools of Writing course.

Social entrepreneur in the area of education and family. She carries out actions to promote the development of integral education and promotes transformative actions of the education system based on co-creation processes. Consultant in the area of Family Education. Married with Paulo Cópio, and mother of three children. All were in home school. Currently the oldest is finishing studies in a professional music course, two remain in home school. She is a host of various home school support activities such as family arts, sports groups, mom and dad sharing circles and teen tutoring,etc.
President of the association Movement for Freedom in Education (Movimento Educação Livre – MEL), a pioneering association in Portugal in the promotion and defense of innovative and childcentered forms of education, and an advocate for freedom of practice of Homeschool. She supports and advises several family and associative projects that in Portugal need to guarantee and defend their rights (in direct relationship with the association’s lawyer). Representative of the rights of families in home education to administrative, governmental and political circles. Founder of the DEScobrir (Discovering) Project – Development, Education and Sustainability, a place to promote parental empowerment for education and family rights, based on personal development tools and pedagogical training. Degree in Conservation and Restoration, Master in Museology, she studied at the University of Fine Arts of Lisbon, the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, the School of Decorative Arts, the New University of Lisbon and the Catholic University of Porto, where she developed several levels of academic background. She has worked for a long time in curating exhibitions and conserving collections. She was a PhD researcher in Preventive Conservation and Risk Assessment in museum reserves. She stopped this activity in 2014 to devote herself entirely to her family and the rights of the family in general, in her country and in the world.

Karin van Oostrum from Pretoria, South Africa, has been involved in home education for the past 29 years, together with her late husband Leendert van Oostrum. Their three daughters never attended school. Before her marriage Karin obtained a BA degree, as well a BA Honours, and a BA Honours in Applied Linguistics. She worked as a lecturer for a while, as a youth worker, and as a translator and editor. She and her late husband, Leendert van Oostrum, were co-founders of the South African Association for Home Schooling in 1992. In 1998 they co-founded the Pestalozzi Trust, the South African legal defence fund for home and civil education, and have since then managed the Trust together. She accompanied Leendert to the GHEC 2012 and 2016. Since Leendert’s death in October 2016 Karin has been appointed manager of the Trust, and is responsible for the general and financial administration of the Trust. She also handles telephonic and electronic enquiries on various aspects of home schooling, and offers workshops to veterans and newbies on legal and practical aspects of home education.

Alexey Komov is a member of the Boards of the Global Home Education Exchange, of the International Organization for the Family (World Congress of Families) and of the international online petitions platform CitizenGO. He also runs the «Classical Conversations» homeschooling curriculum in Russia, is the president of the «FamilyPolicy.Ru» Advocacy Group, founder of the St.Peter and Fevronia Family and Demography Foundation Foundation, director of the International Department of the Patriarchal Commission for the Family, Maternity and Childhood Protection of the Russian Orthodox Church and an advisor of the State Duma MP of the Russian Federation.

Tim Chen is the founder of Taiwan Homeschool Advocates (THA). Tim and his family have appeared in the media in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China to share their experience of homeschooling multicultural and multilingual children in Taiwan. Under his auspices, homeschool law in Taiwan has expanded from just one line in the Primary and Junior High School Act to three dedicated laws plus comprehensive amendments to 20 other relevant laws. Tim and his Polish wife Dorota have been homeschooling their 22-year-old daughter, Zosia since 2002 and subsequently added their 17-year-old son Jas and 9 year-old daughter Ania to their multilingual and multicultural home school—the Babel School. They have co-authored a book titled My Home is an International School – Raising Global Kids. Tim and his family are frequently invited by government agencies, universities, corporations, churches and parent groups to talk about their homeschooling experience. More information is available on the family’s blog or facebook.

Godfrey Kyazze, through studying the Bible to understand a biblical perspective on education, became convicted to homeschool his children. Through this process, he and his wife have created homeschooling curriculum, previously non-existent in Uganda, to train their children in Christian principles from the African perspective. This new curriculum includes training in African history, economics, math, science and other academic disciplines from a biblical worldview. Godfrey has published a number of papers on Home-education, Curriculum and a Biblical view of life. He is a curriculum writer, trainer and speaker on matters of Biblical worldview, Education, Economics, Family, and Governance, all from a distinctly Christian point of view. After creating these materials, Godfrey learned that many other Christian schools desired to teach from this perspective and use the curriculum. He then characterized his perspective on education as a system which incorporates biblical principles, biblical thinking, and biblical reasoning into training of any kind.

Vinicius Reis is the Head of Ombudsman at the Infrastructure Ministry since January 2019; Chairman of the Technical Ombudsman’s Committee of entities linked to the Brazilian Infrastructure Ministry, since January 2019; Executive Director of National Homeschooling Association – ANED; Member of ITU-T SG12, inclusive Quek Guide Document Editor.

Vinicius earned his graduate degree in Law after earning his postgraduate in Telecommunications Regulation. He serves as a federal public servant – Regulatory Specialist of the National Telecommunication Agency (ANATEL). His past professional experience holds numerous titles of Lawyer; Business Representative; Conciliator in Federal Court; Legal Advisor in the Brazilian Education Ministry; Process Coordinator; Analysis of Sanctioning Procedures; Technical Advisor, and Project Manager. But with all this experience Vincius thanks God for everything that he has accomplished so far.

Guillaume de Thieulloy is the father of 4 children. He earned a PhD in Political Science and wrote several books about theology and politics. He’s the CEO of a group of conservative medias (both online and offline) and works also in the French Senate.

Emese was born in Budapest, Hungary, but spent most of her adult life abroad in the Benelux states and in the United States. She has been homeschooling and “roadschooling” for years. Her experiences are a blessings that has brought her to become an advocate for parental rights in her country of origin.

Emese’s activity as a lawyer has been always related to those groups of people who are the most vulnerable. Her first employer was the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs in Budapest. She did legislative work such as preparation and finalization of legal texts in the field of Criminal and Child Protection Law, preparing laws and other documents for the legislative procedure, NGO’s, finalizing drafts of criminal laws on domestic violence and lobbying at the Secretariats and Councils of the Parliament concerning the laws in the field of Human rights of victims of domestic violence and child abuse. Her next employer was the European Parliament, she worked and lived in Luxembourg (Luxembourg) & Strasbourg (France) as a Lawyer-Linguist. She worked in multiple languages, did research and analysis of the legal texts used in the Hungarian government at the time of Hungary’s accession to the EU and unifying the terminology used by the different governmental authorities, working as a part of an international team of lawyers from 13 European countries.

Later she became a homeschool mom of 3 boys, and stepped back from the field of law for the next years, but as her sons grew older, she slowly turned back to legal issues, this time those of homeschooling families. Since 2013, in association with multiple organizations, homeschool leaders and independent schools, she has been advising families in legal issues, accompanying and helping homeschooling families in court cases and other legal questions, drawing legal responses to the authorities, writing reports and summaries about the current legal situation and freedoms of homeschooling in Hungary, e.g. doctrinal education of practical parental rights from the Human Rights Treaties bounding the State of Hungary at present.

She has accomplished to make a complex research on the homeschooling families in Hungary, analysis of their circumstances- social and living environment, educational background, reasons of homeschooling, and the reasons of their decision of home educating their children. Ongoing interaction with the independent schools and organizations such as Clonlara, HomeLife Academy and West River Academy.

She has been working with the help of HSLDA on developing relationships with the governmental leaders in the field of education, as well as the official research institutes and NGOs.

Now she is excited and honored to join GHEX Team as member of the Advisory Board.

Marek Budajczak from Poland deals with home education in several ways. With his wife and daughter and son, he was among the first (25 years ago) homeschoolers in their country. As a scholar (with his Ph.D. in educational sciences and professorate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan) he wrote the first scholarly book on home education within continental Europe (three editions by now), along with many articles and interviews for popular media. He is the president of the Home Education Association and also of Education Domestica Institute helping very many Polish parents (even in court cases) with homeschooling their children and fighting for just legislation in the field.

Tim Vince has a lifelong experience in education. Not only his own formal education at five schools and two UK universities – graduating with a BA(Hons) and MSc – but also as a governor of a pioneering SEN school for 28 years. He has wide commercial and charity experience in Europe and the Middle East, edited a newspaper for religious leaders and arranged for thousands of personal pilgrimages. Over the last fifteen years Tim has presented Christian TV programs in the UK and engaged in public inter-religious debates. He leads The European Academy of Christian Homeschooling – serving around 2,000 Christian homeschoolers and is on the steering committee of The Values Foundation to support faith and families in education. He is married with two children who are currently at University.

Erika Di Martino, is a mother of five homeschooled children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8, 4, who has been involved in education and homeschooling in Europe for over 10 years.
She is the founder of the Italian Home Education Network www.edupar.org, she is a writer and a family and educational coach.

Erika has collaborated with numerous Italian and International newspapers and has participated in various television programs and events, explaining to millions of people how to Homeschool. She and her family have been inspiring and supporting parents who are embracing this educational choice, sharing their challenges, their achievements and their spiritual growth.