Ertharin cousin biography for kids
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American Hunger Heroes: Ertharin Cousin
Ertharin Cousin was raised to help people in need. She learned to fight for change from her parents. Her mother was a social worker and father a community activist. She learned to share while helping out at her grandmother’s restaurant after school. When people didn’t have enough money to eat, her grandmother would feed them.
In her community, “There was a sense of responsibility beyond yourself,” Ertharin said.
Photo: WFP/Thomas Freteur
During her time as Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin visited the village of Pas in Haiti in 2016. At the time, Haiti was in its third year of drought and 3.6 million people were hungry.
That sense of responsibility followed Ertharin into her career, which she’s dedicated to not only feeding hungry people at home and abroad, but also enabling them to build a more self-sufficient future.
Ertharin’s career started in politics. In 1997, she was appointed
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Ertharin Cousin, a diplomat and leading advocate for ending global hunger, was born on May 12, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois, to Anne Cousin, who worked in social services, and her husband Julius Cousin, who was a property owner and community development activist. Cousin grew up on the West Side of Chicago. She received her B.A. (1979) from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Juris Doctorate (1982) from the University of Georgia Law School, focusing on international law and studying under former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
Upon completion of her law degree, Cousin returned to Chicago, where from 1983 to 1993, she held several positions, including Assistant Attorney General and Western Regional Office Director for the Illinois Attorney General’s Office; Deputy Director at the Chicago Board of Ethics; and Director of Government Affairs for AT & T.
In 1993, Cousin became Deputy Chief of personal for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the following year joined the
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Ertharin Cousin
About Ertharin Cousin
Ertharin Cousin is a distinguished fellow of global food and agriculture at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. From 2012 to 2017 she served as executive director of the World Food Programme, where she led the world’s largest humanitarian organization with 14,000 staff serving 80 million vulnerable people across 75 countries.
Cousin possesses more than 30 years of national and international nonprofit, government, and corporate leadership experience. She maintains relationships with global government, business, and community leaders, and has published numerous articles regarding agriculture, food security, and nutrition.
In 2009, Cousin was nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as the US ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. In this role, Cousin served as the US representative for all food, agriculture, and nutrition-related issues. She regularly represented US interest in global leader discus