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Join me on this journey:

This week, I will be traveling to Qatar and Jordan -- countries located in a part of the world known as the \u201cMiddle East\u201d (if you look on a map, it\u2019s just to the east of Africa) -- and I want young people like you all across America to join me on this journey!

On this trip, just like on previous international trips, I\u2019ll be focusing on global girls\u2019 education, an issue I care deeply about as a First Lady, a mother of two daughters, and a woman whose life was transformed by my education. You see, neither of my parents went to college, and they didn\u2019t have much money. But they pushed me to work as hard as I could in school, and thanks to a lot of financial aid, I was able to go to college and law school and have all kinds of exciting jobs and opportunities.

Unfortunately, so many girls around the world never have the opportunities I had to get an education and fulfill their dreams. In fact, right now,
http://click.mail.whitehouse.gov/?qs=7e0385a50271b22848ef5e939216a2fd0a8efcc50591764afd38fa6ca13257855442a6abd79f0488
62 million girls across the globe aren\u2019t going to school at all .

Many of them simply can\u2019t afford it because, unlike here in the U.S., in some countries, parents actually have to pay for their kids to attend school. Sometimes the nearest school is miles away, and parents are afraid their daughters will be hurt or kidnapped while walking to or from school. Some schools don\u2019t have adequate bathrooms for girls, so they have to stay home when they have their periods, and they may fall behind and even wind up dropping out.

Imagine what it would be like for you if you had to stop your own education.

Imagine being told, at the age of 12 or 13, \u201cThat\u2019s it, you\u2019re done with school. You\u2019ve gotten all the education you\u2019re ever going to get -- you won\u2019t do any more science projects, or read any more books for English class, or have any more music, or art, or sports, or time with your friends in the lunchroom. And any dreams you have for what you want to be when you grow up -- a teacher, an astronaut, a nurse, a writer -- you have to give them up because you\u2019ll never get the knowledge and skills you need to do those jobs.\u201d

Pretty awful, right? And I don\u2019t think any young person should ever have to give up their dreams like this. I think every child on this planet -- boys and girls -- should be able to get an education.

That\u2019s why, last spring, President Obama and I launched
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Let Girls Learn , a new initiative to help adolescent girls across the globe go to school. Through Let Girls Learn, we\u2019ll be helping communities around the world create girls\u2019 leadership and mentorship projects, build school bathrooms for girls (because sometimes, schools don\u2019t have adequate bathroom facilities for girls, which is one of the reasons why they can\u2019t attend school), and more. We\u2019ll also be funding girls\u2019 education programs in countries that are torn apart by war or violence, and we\u2019ll be working to address issues like poverty that make it hard for girls to get an education (because their families can\u2019t afford to send them to school).

http://click.mail.whitehouse.gov/?qs=7e0385a50271b228d84858d207834c0f6cd8d954464b8524ae32de2aa3344240803ed1775a62f03b

And this week, I\u2019m heading to Qatar to speak at a global education conference attended by people from 120 countries around the world. I\u2019ll be urging other countries to invest more in girls\u2019 education and to challenge cultural beliefs and practices that make people think girls are less worthy of an education than boys.

In Jordan, I\u2019ll be visiting a school and speaking to several hundred middle school-aged girls. Like the U.S., Jordan is committed to educating every child in their country -- both boys and girls, including many children whose families have fled from Syria, a neighboring country that\u2019s in the midst of a horrific civil war (millions of Syrians have had to leave their country because of the violence). Many of the girls at the school I\u2019m visiting are Syrian refugees, and even though they\u2019ve faced all kinds of challenges and hardships in their lives, they\u2019re working hard in school and making their families proud. I\u2019m excited to meet these girls -- and I\u2019m excited to share their stories with all of you.

I\u2019ll also be visiting a military base in Qatar to spend time with some of our extraordinary men and women in uniform and tell them how thankful I am for their service. And I\u2019ll be visiting an amazing historical and archeological site in Jordan called Petra -- a beautifully preserved city that\u2019s thousands of years old!

I want to share this journey with you, because I think it\u2019s important for young people like you to be global citizens -- to connect with other young people around the world and learn about their lives. I also want you to be inspired and motivated by the girls I meet and to realize that if they can succeed in school even in the face of so many challenges, so can you.

That\u2019s why I\u2019ll be using social media to share my trip with you. I hope you\u2019ll join me! Here\u2019s how:

- Check out my daily travel blog on
http://click.mail.whitehouse.gov/?qs=7e0385a50271b2285f7e3d5c9ce5d5c87f3b8b675b425761b6977bbfaafaea75039f5fbd4c32093b
go.wh.gov/FLOTUSMidEast and on Medium.
- Follow me on Twitter
http://click.mail.whitehouse.gov/?qs=7e0385a50271b228082676beef15828b59bf52411e87cf92050ba41099fb0ab9888d96e1e22d26f4
@FLOTUS and on Instagram
http://click.mail.whitehouse.gov/?qs=7e0385a50271b228d4a0457df52568898e6fbcadc4214eae2a2205a056ee1d7fd83855fb0918ea33
@MichelleObama for the latest updates from the road.
So stay tuned.

-- Michelle Obama


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