After a series of megawatt performances and Malala Yousafzai’s moving speech, the First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) Michelle Obama graces the 2015 Global Citizen Festival to launch Let Girls Learn, a new campaign focusing on education for girls worldwide. And she does it with Beyoncé’s blessing, sharing the same stage as the feminist pop icon.
In what the public thought was just a digital cameo, the FLOTUS surprised the crowd and personally explained what the hashtag #62MillionGirls was all about.
“Right now, more than 62 million girls worldwide are out of school,” she began. “As I’ve traveled around the world, I have met so many of these girls and they are so bright and so determined to make something of themselves… These girls are our girls and I simply cannot walk away from them.”
Let Girls Learn is a U.S. government-wide initiative launched by U.S. President Barack Obama and the First Lady. It aims to help girls go to and stay in school, despite their diminished economic opportunities. It seeks to empower young girls through education, and improve their quality of life with it.
#62MillionGirls is an initiative that calls for people to share selfies on social media, along with a caption that tells one thing he or she learned in a school. The format goes: “In school, I learned ____. #62MillionGirls don’t have that chance.” Through it, both awareness and action are being encouraged.
Notable celebrities and personalities have shown support for the campaign.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images