Calvert Giving Fund
Barack Obama's Mother's Work in Microfinance
By Shari Berenbach, Calvert Foundation's CEO and President
At a recent dinner party with some friends who had worked for the Ford Foundation in the 1980s, I learned that the late Ann Dunham, Barack Obama’s mother, had been a consultant to Ford in their microenterprise programs. They also referenced her consulting work with Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), one of the earliest and largest microfinance programs in the world.
Could this really be true? Do we have in this new President someone who has understood the power of investment as a tool to end poverty? The answer, it seems, is “Yes!”
Research on Obama’s mother indicates that her 1992 dissertation at the University of Hawaii was entitled “Peasant Blacksmithing in Indonesia: Surviving and Thriving Against All Odds.” Over the years she contributed to a microfinance initiative that helped people engaged in rural cottage industries pull themselves out of poverty.
We hope that today Ann’s son Barack will bring to his new position a direct understanding and awareness of how access to financial services has the potential to transform lives.
