Having "Obama" as a last name comes with its advantages — and one of them is the opportunity to tell the world about the things you passionately want to change.

Auma Obama, the Kenyan half-sister of the President, came to Austin Thursday to promote her memoir “And then Life Happens.” Sitting down with her, you soon realize that she isn’t good at talking about herself; she prefers to talk about her work with the children of Kenya.

“Because of my brother, doors are now open to me. I’ve had a lot of publicity with the book mainly because of my brother, and people want to hear about that and it also gives me an opportunity to talk about my work.”

Auma Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr. remarried to a white woman when she was four. Obama describes the powerful affect her "adopted" white mother had on her growing up. She left Kenya at age 17 to study in Europe, went to college in Germany where she earned a PhD, and lived in Great Britain for a time. Her life now revolves her efforts working with Kenyan children, an organization called Sauti Kuu which, translated, means “powerful voices.”

She has partnered with Turk Pipkin, the Austin writer, filmmaker and philanthropist responsible for The Nobelity Project. Pipkin has worked in Kenya developing schools. His most famous project is Mahiga High School, the subject of his latest film "Building Hope."

Spending 30 minutes with them is an education in diversity, philanthropy, and what to means to help. I sat down with Auma Obama and Turk Pipkin to hear their thoughts and ideas on the American perspective about Africa and philanthropy. Here is that discussion:

About Africa

Auma Obama: "Africa is not a country. Very often people talk about Africa and you have the impression they are talking about a country. Even in the language we use, as though it is a country that needs to be nurtured; you can take it in your arms and gently look after it like a kitten. And that gives the wrong impression of a huge continent with 54 countries with very many challenges but also a great deal of strength and great people who are very competent. You do the continent injustice when you throw everyone into one big place."

On what it means to "help"

"I do not use that word. It’s not about helping; you’re not going to Africa to help anybody, because really it’s about sharing — it’s about partnerships.

"Let's take Turk [Pipkin] for example. It's not about Turk coming and helping. It’s about me looking for resources and people who are like-minded as I am. Like-minded people have a similar vision for change and improving people’s lives and saying 'What can I contribute towards that.'

"When we talk about contributions, we talk about dialogue, because our impression of need — and I include myself in this because I don’t come from a poor situation, I’m quite OK, I’m comfortable — but my impression of what a need might be when I work with children in the slums or if Turk is with me in a rural area where we are working on a project with the young people, we may think 'Oh my God, that child is so deprived so poor because they don’t have X, Y or Z — those things that we, for our lives need. The only way we can know what their real need is, is by talking to them. So the first thing you can do if you want to interact — I don’t call it help — you need to be in dialogue. You need to talk and find out ‘How can I get involved?'

"I don’t feel Turk imposes on me some package of assistance that will then make my life or lives of the children I work with, any better. It’s a constant dialogue, 'What can we do to support these young people in realizing their own potential and also expose them to more opportunities?'"

On partnerships

"If you’re coming from your culture and you want to work with me — since you are exposed to different things which I don’t know about and then when we come together — we compliment each other. It’s a larger palate, it’s a buffet of opportunities and that’s how I consider my work — it’s creating opportunities and options for young people.

"But in defining what the young people's need is, and finding out if they want to access the support you want to give them, you must not give them a feeling that they are victims or they are in some way 'human beings that need to be saved,' because the mentality becomes such that 'Oh, somebody is coming to save me, somebody is coming to help me,' so what ends up happening is they wait. For example, [To Turk] you build a school and a door handle breaks and they say 'Oh well, that’s Turk's school, we’ll wait for Turk to come and fix it.'

"I am constantly reminding the young people, it’s you who has the decision, it's you who has the responsibility. If something happens you have to have ownership of it. I can start something, but you have to finish it."

On the children of Kenya

Turk Pipkin: "Nairobi has grown from half a million people to four million people. You have all these young people who live in rural areas and move from these beautiful rural areas because they don’t know what opportunity is available to them there. So they go to Nairobi thinking 'I’m going to strike it rich in the big city,' but there’s no opportunity and they end up living in the slum.

"This is a common global issue, and for all the great development work so many organizations do, I don’t really see many organizations that are working with young people in the rural areas. That’s one of things I love about what Auma’s doing with Sautii Kuu."

Auma Obama: "The children must identify possibility in their own communities. We are trying to open their eyes and show them that they already have something, so they are not saying 'Oh, I’m poor, help me, give to me.'

On giving the children of Kenya a voice

Turk Pipkin: "Sauti Kuu means 'powerful voices' and this is about giving them a voice. Education comes first of course — most of the kids at Sauti Kuu have been to school and have some education — but to listen to them, you ask the kids 'What are your ideas, what do you think you want to do?' And they don’t say anything."

Auma Obama: "Yes, they don’t raise their voices. This is what we mean by 'informal education' — learning about who you are, acquiring a voice, acquiring the possibility of taking a position on something."

Turk Pipkin: "If you can't say what you want to do, you’ll never get there."

On philanthropy

Auma Obama: "The core of what you want to do is give young people a voice. The philanthropist gives of themselves.

"We’ve created this image of the white people being rich and able to help and the black people being poor. And that’s what I am trying to break because at the end of the day it’s not sustainable. It just creates dependencies. And that’s why we still have so much suffering and poverty in the world due to underdevelopment. We have to change the model.

"The only way I can responsibly work with young people is to empower them to try and help themselves and use whatever means I have to enable them and create opportunities that they can champion."

On her book, "And Then Life Happens"

Auma Obama: "It was great to write the book. I need to do things for myself and this was a journey that was necessary for me. I'd always wanted to write a book about my family and my situation. I’ve lived in such diverse cultures of different races and different religions.

"I’ve been doing cultural somersaults all my life — and finding a way to cope and deal with it. I learned that the power to cope is dependent on me. The power to do anything in my life has to come from within, and I am the one who determines what happens. I wanted to pass that on so others can realize how enriching and how valuable it is to have all this diversity and to embrace it because it makes you a better person.

"Because of my brother, doors are now open to me. I’ve had a lot of publicity with the book mainly because of my brother, and people want to hear about that and it also gives me an opportunity to talk about my work.

"I have a lot more visibility and I have a lot more interest in me. I would like people to think, 'She really does great stuff, and she’s also the sister of Barack Obama.'"

Turk Pipkin: "Barack lucked out; he could have gotten Billy Carter."

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A book signing and reception for Auma Obama will be held Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $25.00 and proceeds will fund a water well at the Sauti Kuu Youth Center in Kogelo, Kenya.