Dr. Rita Auma Obama was born in Nairobi in 1960. She is a germanist, sociologist, journalist und author. Auma Obama studied in Germany from 1980 onwards and graduated in the nineties. She is the older half-sister to US-President Barack Obama.
Following positions in England, she eventually returned to Kenya, where she has been engaged with the humanitarian organization CARE for many years. In July 2010 she joined the Jacobs Foundation board of trustees, and is furthermore the initiator and chief executive of the SAUTI KUU foundation.
„He was criticized for his ideas - or not even criticized, but people questioned it and weren‘t really impressed. I am impressed that over all these years he kept committed to what he believed in and now he really is one of the pioneers of what we are now calling ‚bio-agriculture‘.“
Dr. Auma Obama – background
Born 1960 in Nairobi. She is the older half-sister to US-president Barack Obama. Auma Obama was born to the government official Barack Obama sen. (1936 – 1982) and his wife Kezia Obama - she has ten siblings and half-siblings.
Auma Obama visited a girls’ boarding school in Nairobi. Due to her fascination with German authors such as Heinrich Böll and Wolfgang Borchert – whose works she read in English - she came to Germany to study Sociology and German with a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship.
Currently, Auma Obama lives in Kenya, where she is engaged with the humanitarian organization CARE. Her responsibilities include the coordination of the “Sports for social change” initiative, which incorporates projects like “Box-Girls”, where girls are taught strength and confidence skills. Several appearances on German television (Beckmann 2008 and 2010, NDR Talk Show 2010, Maybrit Illner 2011) and newspaper interviews have contributed to her growing prominence. In Autumn 2010 she published her autobiography “And Then Life Happens – A Memoir”. In 2011 a former university classmate, film director Branwen Okpako, made a documentary about Auma Obama’s professional and personal path, entitled “The Education of Auma Obama”. Amongst other things, the film explores the relationship with her father and her half-brother Barack Obama, as well as her education in Germany.
Auma Obama is the initiator and chief executive of the Sauti Kuu foundation. Sauti Kuu is Kiswahili and means “strong voices”. The organization aims to promote development by helping young people in Africa to take advantage of educational, economic and cultural opportunities – allowing them to create their own future.