Rita Auma Obama (born June 1, 1960) is a Kenyan-British community activist, sociologist, journalist, author, and half-sister of former President of the United States, Barack Obama. Obama serves as the executive chairwoman of Sauti Kuu Foundation (Strong Voices Foundation), a non-profit organisation that helps orphans and other young people struggling with poverty in Kenya.
Contents
Background and education
Auma Obama is the daughter of Barack Obama Sr. and his first wife, Kezia Obama (née Aoko). She is the older half-sister of Barack Obama. After attending a local elementary school and The Kenya High School for secondary education (1973–1978), she secured a scholarship to attend university in Germany. She studied German at Heidelberg University from 1981 until 1987. After her graduation from Heidelberg, she went for graduate studies at the University of Bayreuth, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1996. She also studied at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. Obama's final project at the Film Academy was the twenty-minute film All That Glitters (1993), which blends genre conventions in depicting the vulnerability of Black lives in post-unification Germany.
Humanitarian commitment
Obama lived in the United Kingdom after her studies. While there, she helped her mother, Kezia, to relocate from Kenya to the UK. Kezia was granted British citizenship in 2011.