This racist comment made Kuwa aware of his identity as a marginalized Nuba,[2] and inspired revolutionary ideas in him when he later studied political science at Khartoum University.
At the University, Kuwa was strongly influenced by the ideas of Tanzania's first president Julius Nyerere, the African history of Sudan and about the Nuba cultures.
He then found work as a teacher after graduation, teaching in Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains, before being elected to the Southern Kordofan regional assembly in 1981.
Others in the SPLA High Command included James Wani Igga, Daniel Awet Akot, and Kuol Manyang Juuk.
Faced with the despair of the Nuba people, Kuwa in 1992 convened an Advisory Council forum, asking the representatives to choose whether to continue with the liberation war or surrender to the government.
In 1994, Kuwa's political star within the SPLM/A rose when he organized and chaired a National Liberation Council of the rebel movement, which voted to establish civil administrations, similar to the one he had introduced in the Nuba Mountains, throughout the areas under the SPLA’s control.
Several international NGOs agreed to support it, but the amount of relief the NRRDO managed to mobilize never matched the enormous needs of the Nuba.
The Yousif Kuwa Teachers Training Institute (YKTTI), which was established in the Nuba Mountains with the support of the Koinonia Community, is named after him.