The Good Council: Auma Obama and Raina Ivanova

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Raina Ivanova  

Hello, my name is Raina. I’m a 17-year-old Climate and Child Rights activist from Germany and today I’m speaking to Dr. Obama. Thank you for being here first of all. 

Dr Auma Obama 

Thank you for having me. 

Raina Ivanova  

Dr. Auma Obama is a Kenyan sociologist, journalist, author and speaker and she’s a very powerful activist who supports many projects in the east of Africa and who has successfully created her own foundation called Sauti Kuu. She’s also a Councillor at the World Future Council. Thank you for being here. 

Dr Auma Obama  

Yes. Thank you for having me. 

Raina Ivanova 

We are speaking together in in Hamburg today. How do you like the city and how do you feel? 

Dr Auma Obama  

I actually like Hamburg a lot, especially when the sun shines as it’s doing now. It can be a bit dreary when it’s raining. But usually, when I’ve been here, luckily the sun has been shining. And it’s a beautiful city, beautiful buildings, the lovely waters of the Alster. So, yes, I do love Hamburg. 

Raina Ivanova  

I think then you are a very lucky person because it rains quite often here.  

Dr Auma Obama  

Yes, I actually am lucky.  

Raina Ivanova  

The sunshine comes with you.  

Dr. Auma Obama  

Sunshine. Indeed. That’s true. 

Raina Ivanova 

,So, let’s not waste any of our precious time and get started right away. You grew up in Nairobi, in Kenya as one of five siblings and you started your education at a boarding school. How was it growing up in Nairobi and in the Luo community? 

Dr Auma Obama 

Well, I think you said I grew up in Nairobi, which is quite diverse. And the Luo community was my family, because otherwise, Kenya has over 40 different ethnic groups. So, we grew up with very many different people from different ethnic backgrounds. And in the family: Yes, it was a little family. Although, saying that, my stepmother was American, so we’re already multicultural within the family. And the interesting thing about my growing up was that I was the only girl. So, among boys, which made my upbringing quite interesting, because I often heard “you can’t do this”, “you can’t do that because you’re a girl.” Or “you must do this”, “you must do that because you’re a girl.” And that was, at first, quite confusing. And then I was a little bit rebellious. So, I would say: “Why? Why do I have to do this because I’m a girl?” “Why can’t I do this because I’m a girl?” So, my family had a little bit of trouble with me on that front because I would always resist being put into a box. 

Raina Ivanova 

What was your favorite thing about growing up in Kenya? 

Dr Auma Obama  

My favorite thing about growing up in Kenya was the fact that I grew up with a lot of space and a lot of time and a lot of friends to play with. So, there was really a balance between growing up and going to school and also playing. We really were able to go out. From the Swiss Alps where I will be out in the morning and come back in the evening, just before it got dark, and only because I get in trouble for being out. Because we really played, I really loved my childhood, we had a lot of time to play. We played traditional games with five stones, we played skipping, we played football, we went exploring in the caves near where we lived. So, it was really full of adventure and discovery and really just exploring the world as a child. And I really love that. And I think I was privileged to have that because many children don’t have that anymore because of the urbanization and also, especially in Europe, because many children grew up in apartments, so I know that I was blessed to have that in my childhood.  

Raina Ivanova  

Yeah, that sounds lovely. You mentioned your education and also Europe. So, after you finished your school in Kenya, you moved to Germany, with a scholarship to study in Saarbrucken, Heidelberg and in Berlin. So why did you choose Germany for your studies? And is there something you find particularly interesting about the German culture? 

Dr Auma Obama  

Germany was sort of a coincidence initially because when I was in high school, they offered German as a course. And I had missed a chance at French because I didn’t pay enough attention. I don’t know how it works here, but the system in Kenya was such that you had to get very good grades in two languages. And I think I wasn’t paying attention too much when it came to French. And I got the opportunity just before I finished high school, to jump in from the side and do a language and this was German. And we had a really great German teacher. So, we explored the German language we had exhibition visits to go to and I learned German with Asterix and Obelix. And that’s how I say I learned my German. So, we had so much fun learning the language. And it was really, really a great time for me. And I discovered German literature. So, I started reading a lot of German literature, because that would also help with learning the German language. And then I thought: Well, now that I finished high school, I did want to go abroad, because I wanted to have more space to spread my wings to find myself and my own identity. And I felt restricted because as a girl at home, I was constantly being told what to do and what not to do. And I wanted my own space, so I said, I want to study abroad, I don’t want to stay at home. And I started looking for scholarships. And obviously, because I had German as a background, it made sense to try and get a scholarship in a German-speaking country. At the same time, I was interested in German literature, and studying German culture, and I was lucky enough to get a scholarship. So, I ended up in Germany, like you said, in Saarbrucken, to learn the language properly to sharpen up, because it wasn’t as good as I thought it was when I got here. And then I did my master’s in Heidelberg, and my doctorate in Bayreuth, before I then went to Berlin to study at the film school. So, I did a lot of learning, I was really what they’re calling “Ein ewiger Student” in German, which is a lifelong student, and I still am. 

Raina Ivanova  

So, you mentioned that you studied in film school in Berlin. What else was your study focus? 

Dr Auma Obama  

I think, through all of what I did by studying in Heidelberg, or learning the language in Saarbrucken, or even in Bayreuth, and then find and then finding the film school, what really drives me is communication and telling stories. And I was always looking for a way to be able to tell my story, and tell the story of the African continent, and then tell General people’s story, to make people connect, to interact with each other, understand each other. For me, it was really important I did a lot with the idea of being different. Being different is nothing to be afraid of, being different is actually enriching your life. Diversity is something that we need to strive for. And it’s an opportunity to learn, it’s an opportunity to grow. It’s an opportunity to enrich yourself and your surroundings. So, I think that’s what always drove me. Whether I was trying to do it through public speaking, whether I was trying to do it through teaching, whether I was trying to do it through making films and telling stories or writing books, it was always the motivation behind what I did: communication and exchange and integration. And at the same time, celebrating our differences, too. 

Raina Ivanova  

I can imagine that that might have been difficult for you moving to Germany as a young woman, do you want to share something about that? 

Dr Auma Obama  

When I was just a little bit older than you, I was 19 when I decided to leave. And it was interesting, because when I was trying to get my scholarship, because I was the only girl, and I was very close to my father, I thought that my father wouldn’t let me leave. I had this impression: oh, he won’t, he’ll decide in my life what I’m going to do with it. And he’s going to stop me from doing because that was my own decision. I looked for my scholarship by myself. So, I actually left without letting him know so I snuck out of the country. I ran away. My mom knew but she didn’t tell him, she was sworn to secrecy. So, for me, it was an adventure from beginning to the end, in that I left without everybody knowing I was going, it was quite unconventional. And so, I started off my life in Germany fighting the fight for my rights. And I think I kept that fight up till today. 

Raina Ivanova 

So, you lived in Germany, and also in the UK for a few years, right. And now you have returned to Kenya, where you also helped to set up the Sports for Social Change Network, which helps to introduce girls in particular to sports as a means of improving their social situation. Why is it especially girls’ rights that you are passionate about? 

Dr Auma Obama  

I think I’m passionate about the rights of all young people. That is definitely. I tend not to discriminate, but the focus on the girls is really because we don’t want them to be left behind, yes. The tendency for girls is that if you have a situation where an initiative has been created, or activities are happening that involve boys and girls, the girls will always take one step back and let the boys go ahead, and the boys will take the position. We know it in life, you are a young woman, you’ll experience it much more, I’ve experienced it quite a bit. Because men are not shy, whether they are competent or not. They’re not shy about taking the lead. And what we’re trying to do is make the girls also not shy about taking the lead, be brave, just try their luck be out there, be upfront. And that’s what we try to do. And that’s why in the Sports with Social Change Network that we created at the time, it is about promoting this, to make girls also start using sport just like boys, just like men do, to improve their confidence to make them have more self-esteem and to realize that being a girl is not a limitation. Being a woman is not a limitation. It’s just a fact of life. Before you’re a woman before you’re a girl, you’re a human being and as human beings we’re equal. So that’s what I was trying to promote. And that’s what the whole program was about. 

Raina Ivanova  

That sounds very impressive. And a few years after that, in 2010, you started your own foundation: Sauti Kuu. What does Sauti Kuu mean, and why did you start the foundation? 

Dr Auma Obama  

Sauti Kuu means powerful voices. And I started the foundation because, actually, I worked for a while with international organizations, e.g., Sports for Social Change. And one of the problems I always had was that many organizations, not just this one, are donor-driven in the sense that they are funds-driven. So, an activity can be done, a program, a project, and it will be lasting, maybe three years, five years. But this is because of the funding that is available. And very many times the funding is available for that period. And you work with young people, you work with a local team. And as soon as the funds are finished, the whole project just stops, it’s like – to me – falling off the edge of a cliff. And this really disturbed me because we were working with children, and when you’re working with a 10-year-old, if the project is only a three-year-long project, then the child is 13. When the project then stops, then what happens to this child, if the child is from the slums, you have not actually even scratched the surface of their life, you may have made a small dent, but you haven’t actually made that much of an impression. And they go back into the slums. And they fall into a bigger slum, because now they’ve tasted the possibilities of being appreciated, of moving forward or being active, all these things, and suddenly, there’s nothing there. So, they actually go backward and fall into a situation that is even more helpless and hopeless. And this disturbed me a lot, because even with a five-year program that 10-year-old is only a 15-year-old, not even old enough to even go into an apprenticeship somewhere, or even learn a trade somewhere because they should still be in school. And this disturbed me a lot, but it’s very hard to change big organizations and the way they work. It’s, for me, less personal. And even the fundraising is less personal. It’s very distant. It’s project-based, project-based, as I said, project funds-based and not individual-based and not beneficiary-based, in my opinion. So, parallel to working within this international organization, I would pick up these young people and start collecting them and working with them around own things that I was doing. And actually, in the end, I said “Well, if I’m already doing so much on the side on my own to keep these young people still active, to keep an eye on them, and try and keep the project alive like a skeleton type of support for them, why don’t I just do my own thing?” And also, another motivation was the fact that I wanted to work in the rural area, which at that time, few organizations worked in, because the rural, young person, the rural child with regards to being supported in a project-based situation whereby you assist them to improve their lives. There are very few organizations, and they’re disadvantaged. Especially in my own community where there’s a lot of poverty, and a lot of a false sense of not being able to look after your own life, not being able to cope financially by the provision based on ignorance and not knowing how to work with locally available resources. So, I saw a gap that I felt needed to be filled. Also, because with this, I wanted to show that programs have to be run in such a way that at the forefront are the beneficiaries, they must never notice as there’s no money, there must always be continuity. If you struggle in the back struggle in the back looking for funds, whatever. That is the problem of the operation, the problem of the organization, but the beneficiary must, especially with children, it must be continuous. And they must always be able to access the services that you’re giving. So, the fundraising has to be done differently. And it has to be rigorous, and it has to be sustainable and long-term. And we actually managed to make this happen at Sauti Kuu. So, the foundation works in such a way that the beneficiaries stay with us over the years. They grew up with us. But in the background, we have a system whereby we’re constantly fundraising, and we have a system whereby we tried to fundraise for unrestricted funds. So, the program always continues. It is not project-based we call it ongoing program activities. It is program based and not just project-based, we do have restricted funding projects. But our core work is with the ongoing programs that go on all the time. And the young people have sports, young people have drama, they have art activities, they have tuition, they are working in the gardens, because we agriculture, they have many different activities that they do ongoing, that are not just based on one project, and it doesn’t end after three years, and then they, we have to send them home, we never send our children home. 

Raina Ivanova  

That sounds amazing. How many children are in the program currently? 

Dr Auma Obama  

In our books, we have about 500, because we’ve been around for ten years. And what happens is that because they grew up, they go to Nairobi, or they go to university, and they’re not always there. So active participants, we have about 250. But we will say once a Sauti Kuu young person, always a Sauti Kuu young person. So, in the holidays, they come back, and they take part in activities when they’re older, they become interns with us, some of them have been employed by us. So, there’s a lot of continuity. So, you see the same faces again and again and again. I forgot to mention that the parents are very strongly involved. So, we have the children involved. And then we have the parents because you can’t go into somebody’s home, work with their children, and do not involve the parents, because then you’re actually violating their space. So, what we do is, we get the parents involved, but you have to be a parent, you have to have a child with us. So, we have programs for the parents, and the children participate in those programs, whether it’s creating a kitchen garden, or at present, what we’re doing is building energy, save a hut that involves a stove attach, so they start not cutting down the trees and use less wood. So, we do all these things with a kid, children are always involved, so that they learn from what we do and participate in creating those spaces and those initiatives that we do, but the parents are there so that the parents open doors and make it possible. So, we create, together with the parents, a platform for the children to improve their lives by doing different activities be it in economic empowerment, be it in personality developm