Michelle Obama on Girls' Education: "This issue is personal for me."
First Lady Michelle Obama has been quite vocal about her mission to empower young women around the world with her initiative, Let Girls Learn. She's personally visited and encouraged female students to stay in school and even enlisted big-name artists from Missy Elliott to Kelly Clarkson to soundtrack her campaign with "This Is For My Girls." In an op-ed published on CNN today, the First Lady explains why she holds girls' education so close to her heart-it hits close to home.
"Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college," she writes. "But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country."
Aside from childhood experiences, the First Lady noted that meeting real-life role models like Malala Yousafzai inspired her to create Let Girls Learn.
"That's why I decided to work on global girls' education as first lady: because right now, there are tens of millions of girls like Malala in every corner of the globe who are not in school - girls who are so bright, hardworking and hungry to learn," she wrote.
Obama only created the organization in 2015 and now, she says, the U.S. is investing over a billion dollars into global education programs; the U.K., South Korea and Japan have collectively pledged $600 million; and the World Bank will be investing $2.5 million over the next five years. Needless to say, FLOTUS will be busy carrying out educational programs well after she's out of the White House.
She's also promoting a new film called We Will Rise: Michelle Obama's Mission to Educate Girls Around the World, which tells the story of the young women she visited in Liberia in Morocco. Fellow activists and actors Meryl Streep and Freida Pinto also make an appearance.
"I plan to keep working on their behalf, not just for the rest of my time as first lady, but for the rest of my life," she said of these girls and the countless others around the globe.
We Will Rise airs in the U.S. on CNN on Oct 12th. Watch the trailer below.
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