The First Lady Speaks About Girls’ Education with Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep in Morocco and Liberia

“I see myself in these girls, I see my daughters in these girls, and I simply cannot walk away from them” — First Lady Michelle Obama

A pillar of Michelle Obama’s term as First Lady has been her focus on education, and specifically education for women who are being denied access to this fundamental right. Her goal is to help the 62 million girls on this planet who are denied access to education.

Thus, as part of the Let Girls Learn initiative (an initiative to help adolescent girls worldwide attend school), this past week the First Lady met with a group of young ladies from Africa at R.S. Caulfield Senior High School in Unification Town, Liberia. many of whom have overcome obstacles to attend school. She was joined by Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep, both of whom share her passion for education for women. As the meeting, Mrs. Obama announced that the U.S. government will be making major new investments to help girls across Morocco and Liberia get the education they need and deserve. Here are some highlights of the three-day sojourn:

Mrs. Obama shares with the worldwide community that “growing up here in the U.S., we all just take it for granted that we’ll get a free public education through high school. But in many parts of the world, that’s simply not the case – particularly for girls.”  Girls lack access to education for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes it is finances. In many countries parents are required to pay school fees and cover the cost of books and uniforms, and a large number of families simply can’t afford to send their daughters to school. In other instances, girls may live in remote villages hours from the nearest school, and they have no safe way to get there each day. And, sometimes there is a school nearby, but it might not have adequate bathroom facilities for girls.  But, sadly, the issues are not just money and infrastructure, it’s also attitudes and beliefs; some places in this world, including families, think girls are not worthy of an education, or they believe girls should be kept at home to help with household labor, or should be married off young, sometimes before they’re even teenagers.

Thus, millions of ambitious girls from around the world have their educational dreams thwarted.

Mrs. Obama shares that she takes this personally.  She shares that “my own education was everything for me. Neither of my parents had gone to college, but they pushed me to succeed in high school and apply to college and law school, where I learned how to think analytically, write clearly, and advocate forcefully for myself and others. And those degrees led to opportunities my parents never could have imagined for themselves.  I believe every girl on this planet should have that same opportunity to fulfill her promise and shape her own destiny. And we know that giving girls that chance doesn’t just transform their life prospects – it transforms the prospects of their families and their countries too, since girls who are educated earn higher salaries, raise healthier families, and can even boost their countries’ economies with their contributions to the workforce.”

Finally, Mrs. Obama urges all of us “to step up and be a champion for those 62 million girls who aren’t in school. You have everything you need right now to raise awareness about their stories and to support their efforts to get an education.”