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Natalie Portman Is Force for Change, Empowering Women
By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
October 07, 2008
Ask Natalie Portman about her love life, and she’ll shut you down. But mention microfinance, and she’ll gab for hours.
“People care so much more about who I’m dating,” says Portman, who has starred in films from The Other Boleyn Girl to Stars Wars. “We have such an unwarranted spotlight on us.”
Diverting attention toward a cause “as opposed to talking about fashion,” she says, “is a nice way to dissipate this over interest in people who aren’t that interesting.”
Anyone who has met Portman knows she’s no dummy. The actress, 27, is erudite and thoughtful. In 2003, she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in psychology. That same year, she connected with FINCA International (the Foundation for International Community Assistance), which provides microloans to women in developing countries. Her relationship with FINCA, which has a four-star rating (the highest) on the website CharityNavigator.org, has been more enduring than most Hollywood marriages.
Much like Angelina Jolie and Bono, who set the celebrity gold standard on international philanthropy, Portman wants to draw attention to issues that aren’t particularly sexy. Neither FINCA’s mission nor its work is easily explainable. Talk to Portman for five minutes, and you realize that the Oscar-nominated actress knows of what she speaks. Portman, who serves as FINCA’s ambassador of hope, reels off statistics and name-checks specific programs.
The Israeli-American actress (she was born in Jerusalem) gravitated toward FINCA because of her interest in the Middle East and a desire to collaborate with Jordan’s Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, who chairs FINCA’s Village Banking campaign.
“She’s this incredible woman whom I really admire. She’s Palestinian, and I was inspired by her and thought we could do some sort of women’s Middle Eastern initiative,” Portman says. “When I contacted her office, they said she was really excited about FINCA. I had no idea what that meant, so I started exploring it. And then I started traveling with them to learn about it.”
Before affiliating herself with a cause, Portman wanted to learn as much as possible “so I could really stand behind what I am promoting and understand the intricacy of it,” she says. “I traveled to Guatemala with (FINCA), and then I went to Uganda and Ecuador and started really learning and seeing, on the ground, how effective the program is. In Guatemala, you don’t really see hunger — you see malnourishment. In Uganda, you see real starvation.”
