Notes

First Lady Visit to Africa to Highlight Educational Obstacles Girls Face
U.S. first lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to travel on Sunday to Africa to advocate for girl?s education.

Obama will highlight among her core initiatives, Let Girls Learn. Sasha and Malia, President Obama and first lady?s daughters, and the girls? grandmother, Marian Robinson, may also be joining the trip with stops in Liberia, Morocco and Spain.

?We believe very strongly that education and the empowerment of teenagers will probably be critical to an area which has known so much turmoil, particularly given the enormous youth population in those countries,? White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said on Friday.

The initial stop is Liberia, where in fact the first lady will attend a meeting with the first elected woman head of state in Africa, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Obama then will visit the Peace Corps training facility in Kakata, Liberia, to speak with women participating at the Girls Leading Our World Program. They will also meet with Peace Corps volunteers and trainees.

The first lady will talk with adolescent girls at Unification Town, also in Liberia, about the obstacles they faced to be able to acquire education. Actor Freida Pinto will join Obama and is schedule to moderate the meeting.
?The conversation will highlight both educational barriers girls face as Liberia moves beyond the Ebola epidemic, and the U.S. government? more info to keep to address those barriers and provide adolescent girls with equitable access to safe and quality education,? said Tina Tchen, Chief of Staff to the initial lady.

Let Girls Learn is a global initiative launched by the president and first lady in 2015. The program addresses the obstacles that keep more than 62 million girls around the globe out of school such as forced marriage, poverty, and violence.

White House staff said on Friday that 250 million girls live in poverty, and one out of three girls in developing countries are married by age 18. One in nine by 15.

In Morocco, Obama and daughters will be joined by actor Meryl Streep on June 28 and 29 for another conversation to help girls go to school. The united states has about 85 percent of girls enrolled in school, but the number drops to 14 percent for senior high school.

The six-day trip leads to Spain, White house staff said.

Spain is really a longtime U.S. ally and has dealt with ?significant? economic challenges recently.

?The first lady, by visiting these three countries, has the capacity to visit three important regions to the United States, and is able to speak not just to government [officials] but to talk with people and to make clear that ?a key section of our leadership is what we are able to do to lift up the lives of young people, particularly girls,? Rhodes said.

The White House said CNN films is covering trip costs for both actors. During the visit, CNN will be filming a documentary in Liberia and Morocco.

Michelle Obama will undoubtedly be using social media marketing to document the trip. She recently joined Snapchat. She actually is also on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Obama will undoubtedly be authoring the travels in an everyday diary at HelloGiggles.com.



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