The visit – the first in North Africa for the Let Girls Learn initiative – brings new energy to several existing US-Morocco programs focused on girls’ education.
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First Lady Michelle Obama touched down in Morocco on Monday wearing an expensive designer dress during a trip highlighting girls’ education. They hoped to discuss the challenges they face in their educational pursuits.to discuss the challenges facing girls in getting educated.
Earlier in the day, she met with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected woman head of state in Africa.
“She will be a real inspiration to the young girls around here”, he added.
Actress Meryl Streep is scheduled to join Obama and her party Tuesday and Wednesday in Morocco for a conversation on helping girls go to school.
What’s more – $400,000 from the U.S. Agency for International Development will help build new female dormitories to house girls living in rural communities who would otherwise be forced to forgo an education.
Sasha Obama stepped up her involvement in women’s education issues after Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Nigeria in 2014.
This version has been corrected to show that the Millennium Challenge Corporation is a US government foreign aid agency. During a talk for United States initiative Let Girls Learn, she said: “We will emerge together as a group of women to tackle this exclusion”.
“The King has made women’s rights and education top priorities since day one, and significant progress has been made”, said former US Ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel.
“Every single person’s story is different”, said Streep, who advised the young women never to give up and said she was the first in her family to get a university education.
“I’m here to shine a big bright light on you”, she continued. But, in conjunction with Michelle’s tour, USAID has pledged to donate up to $27million to the Let Girls Learn programme.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) also announced during Mrs. Obama’s trip to Morocco the allocation of $100 million to be spent on 100,000 Moroccan students, half of whom will be teenage girls.
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Although Sasha and Malia flew to Marrakesh with their mother, they did not take part in the event on Tuesday.
