Dr. Auma Obama (Trustee: NL )

Dr. Auma Obama is CARE USA’s Sports for Social Change Initiative Program Technical Advisor. She advises on and coordinates all activities related to the CARE Sports for Social Change Initiative (SSCI). This includes the development of a Sport for Social Change Network (SSCN) - a global initiative that has a presence in Brazil, South Africa and the United Kingdom - to promote the integration and multiple approaches in using sports as a tool for social change. Relevant program areas are Youth Empowerment, Education Attainment and Equality, HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building, as well as Life Skills Development for underprivileged children and youth. With particular focus on the girl child, sport is used to integrate and influence positive behavior change.

Since July 2007 Dr. Obama has pioneered this Initiative for CARE in East Africa and is now helping to expand the program to Egypt and Bangladesh.  She joined CARE’s East and Central Africa Regional Management Unit (ECARMU) from the United Kingdom where she was working as Children’s Services Engagement Officer under Local Government. Previously she moved from Project Management to working as a Children’s Trust Participation Coordinator, from having been a Careers and Education Advisor for young people not in education, training or employment and a volunteer Youth Worker.

Currently Dr. Obama sits on the boards of Women Win, an organisation that promotes gender equity through sports,and the board of Jacobs Foundation, a Foundation that funds science and specific intervention programs and their implementation in the field of child and youth development, using an approach that focuses its efforts on child and youth development with special emphasis on positive development opportunities for young people.

In addition to the above Dr. Obama is also an Ambassador for Beyond Sport and a member of Comic Relief’s Sport for Change Advisory Group; a position that requires her to assess and recommend grant applications submitted for funding by NGOs implementing sport-based development projects.

The various positions Dr. Obama holds in different capacities in the Sport for Development arena, give her access to a wide range of different NGOs and CBOs that use sport for social change.

Such relationships are continuously nurtured and expanded and among stakeholders are also included non-sport organizations and institutions that work in various capacities in partnership with the Sport for Social Change Initiative.