When I wrote “The Songs of Sophia,” I co-dedicated it to both Sabina Alkire and John Hammock, the co-founders of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford. Having written previously about Sabina’s inspiration, I want to focus here on why John Hammock’s name appears alongside hers in this dedication—and what his unique journey brought to their transformational partnership.
From the Field to the Formula
What captivated me about John’s contribution to OPHI was the extraordinary path he traveled to reach Oxford. Unlike traditional academic poverty researchers, Hammock arrived with mud on his boots—literally and figuratively. His 30+ years leading organizations like ACCION International USA , Oxfam America, and Feinstein International Center at Tufts University gave him intimate knowledge of poverty’s lived reality.
When I wrote the lines about Sophia kneeling “in the dirt at the unshod feet of the poorest of the poor,” I was thinking of John’s career. He spent decades in villages, slums, and refugee camps, witnessing firsthand what my poem describes: families cooking with dung, children with fever when hospitals are unreachable, entrepreneurs counting coins that can’t cover basic needs.
The Practitioner’s Eye
The probing questions throughout my poem mirror the insights John brought to OPHI’s methodology:
- “When you kneel and touch your floor, do you touch dirt, concrete, planks or carpet?”
- “What food are you preparing? Do you have enough for the day?”
- “Can you pay the bill?”
These weren’t abstract policy variables to him—they were daily realities he witnessed during his microfinance work with ACCION and his humanitarian leadership at Oxfam. His experience taught him that poverty isn’t just about money; it’s about dignity, agency, and basic human capabilities.
Building Bridges Through Numbers
I dedicated my poem to John Hammock because he embodied something I tried to capture in verse: the creation of “an alliance of rich and poor who understand one another.” His entire career was built on this bridge-building.
At ACCION, he connected Wall Street investors with street vendors in La Paz. At Oxfam, he bridged American donors with LATAM farmers. At OPHI, he helped ensure that multidimensional poverty indices were not just academic exercises but tools for genuine partnership between those with resources and those without.
Why This Co-Dedication Honors Both Legacies
The poem’s central message—that “we don’t count unless we plan to make a difference”—captures what I see as John Hammock’s life philosophy. Born in Cuba, shaped by Latin American development challenges, and guided by decades of field experience, he brought to OPHI something no amount of academic training could provide: the wisdom of someone who had sat in those one-room homes, shared those inadequate meals, and counted alongside the poor.
While Sabina brought the methodological brilliance, John brought the practitioner’s urgency. Together, they created something unprecedented: poverty measurement that serves poverty reduction.
I co-dedicated “The Songs of Sophia” to both founders because their partnership represents the marriage of rigorous analysis and compassionate action. But in honoring John specifically, I wanted to celebrate how his field experience ensured that when OPHI counts poverty, it counts toward justice, it makes real life impact.
I hope you take the opportunity to read and share The Tiger Trilogy: The Songs of Sophia and help pass on John Hammock’s wisdom of counting into caring.
The Tiger Trilogy: The Songs of Sophia is available at RugidoMagico.com
