Cherlin

Natalie Portman in Village Banking

One of the smartest people in Hollywood, Harvard graduate Natalie Portman is apparently also the most enclued, as in having a clue what's important in the world. For over a year now she has been working as the Ambassador of Hope for the Foundation for International Community Assistance a village banking organization with operations in 23 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. (Bono, the other most enclued celebrity, is not in Hollywood, but is also working with FINCA.)

Here we see her visiting Nayima Umaru, a formerly desperately poor single mother of seven in Uganda. They are in the kitchen of a small restaurant that Umaru was able to start with a loan from a FINCA-organized village bank.

Parade Magazine had an article on Portman and FINCA in their Nov. 28, 2004 issue, and have just put it up on the Web site a week later, as is their usual practice.

Now I have a complaint about all of this. Why didn't I hear about it for a whole year? But the lack of communication among the organizations and people working on global poverty is a topic for another day.