Former US president Barack Obama returned to the public spotlight Monday, saying he hopes to spend the next phase of his life helping to “prepare the next generation of leadership.”
Obama broke his silence after three months of silence in his adopted hometown of Chicago, addressing high school and college students about the need for greater civic engagement.
The 55-year-old Democrat said he was “incredibly optimistic” about the future.
“I’m spending a lot of time thinking about: what is the most important thing I can do for my next job?” Obama said in his opening remarks at the university, where he once taught law.
“The single most important thing I can do is to help in any way I can to prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world,” he said AFP reports.
Until Monday, he had not given a public speech or an interview since leaving the White House on January 20.
He has tweeted a few times and issued a few statements through a spokesman, notably to defend his signature domestic policy achievement, health care reform — which Trump’s Republicans are now hoping to dismantle.
Obama ended his two terms at the White House in January — handing power over to Donald Trump.
Youth civic engagement and community organising are at the heart of the mission of the Obama Center.
On May 7, he will receive the 2017 Profile in Courage award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston.
On May 25 he is also expected to deliver a speech at a Protestant church gathering at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, with Chancellor Angela Merkel at his side
