What Is Obama Doing Now? Former President Releases Vision For Foundation

The nation has heard relatively little from former President Barack Obama since he boarded Marine One Jan. 20, departing Washington, D.C. and the White House for good. The 44^th president headed straight to vacation upon the conclusion of his eight-year presidency, but now, it seems he’s back to work. His namesake legacy, the Obama Foundation, released its vision for the future in a statement Friday.

“The Obama Foundation is a working, living center for citizenship,” the statement read. “Our goal is to develop the next generation of citizens, to shape what it means to an engaged and active citizen in the 21^st century.”

Obama asked people to weigh in on their hopes for the foundation upon launching its website in January. The most popular responses were gathered and sent out in the statement. Most people wanted the foundation to emphasize the “importance of information and education to healthy citizenship, hope and fear in a complex world, and an understanding that citizenship is much bigger than any one person.”

The foundation was established in 2014 to “develop the next generation of citizen.” The foundation also planned to oversee the construction of the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago, which will include the presidential library.

Obama has flown under the radar since vacating the White House. Aside from photos posted earlier in February showing him and the former first lady vacationing on Richard Branson’s private island, Obama has revealed relatively little about his life post-presidency.

Before leaving office, however, he explained that he wouldn’t stop striving to achieve his goals.

“I’ll go back to doing the kinds of work that I was doing before, just trying to find ways to help people. Help young people get educations and help people get jobs, and try to bring businesses into neighborhoods that don’t have enough businesses,” he told middle schoolers in 2015. “That’s the kind of work I really love to do.”