Glamazons,
I had the pleasure of hearing the First Lady speak for the second time — at the historic Apollo theater right in my neighborhood of Harlem. What a privilege and an honor! When I moved to New York City eight years ago with stars in my eyes, I was dreaming of moments like this.
We were gathered (media and over 1,000 excited schoolgirls) for a panel on education hosted by Glamour Magazine and presented by Maybelline and the Harnisch Foundation. Moderated by Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, the panel included First Lady Michelle Obama, Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, HIV/Aids activist and Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron and Nurfahada, a courageous 16-year-old activist and Plan International girl advocate from the Philippines. It was livestreamed on AOL, Google for Education captured it on film and I managed to record a bit on my Periscope (@DressUpWithJess). And schoolgirls from Kenya, Ghana, and the Philippines were able to ask questions to panelists through video recordings.
Before the panel even began, we were treated to a performance by Nico & Vinz that got the crowd even more excited.
And there were remarks by Maybelline New York VP Anne-Marie Nelson Bogle, Apollo Foundation President/CEO Jonelle Procope and actress Sophia Bush, who served as emcee.
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While everyone’s insight on education and women’s empowerment was informative and moving, it was the First Lady who used every opportunity to really connect with and inspire these little girls. She dutifully answered questions about Let Girls Learn, the government-wide initiative to create programs that ensure girls get their education, and #62milliongirls, the social media campaign she created to spread awareness about the 62 million girls who are currently not in school all over the world. But then, she’d turn her attention toward the young girls in the room and speak directly to them, spreading wisdom and insight that will hopefully follow them throughout their lives.
As the First Lady, she wields the kind of power and influence to turn a standard panel into a life-altering experience for those school-age children. They’ll always remember the moment they were in a small theater with the First Lady of the free world, so why not say something that’ll truly resonate with them and potentially change their lives for the better? Little did she know she was also impacting me (yes, a grown woman!) with her words…so deeply in fact that sometimes I was fighting back tears (and so was the reporter next to me!).
Here are just 7 quotes from Michelle Obama that inspired me that awesome day:
On the importance of keeping positive people around you:
“I want to encourage all of us, as young women, as older women, we have to raise our own bars. You will not be successful when you’re around people who drag you down — not just the boys, but it’s also your peer group. You have to fill your bucket with positive energy, and if you have people . . . bringing you down and not lifting you up, whether that’s your boo or your best friend, you have to learn to push these people to the side.”
On choosing books over boys:
“There is no boy at this age that is cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting your education. If I had worried about who liked me and who thought I was cute when I was your age, I wouldn’t be married to the president of the United States.”
On being mindful of your future:
“You don’t want to look back when you’re 60 and regret that you just didn’t have the patience to push through these four years of mess. You’ll have opportunity, and you’ll have control of your life to make choices. And you won’t have to listen to your parents, because you’ll have a job and you’ll pay your own bills. You want that freedom. Freedom comes later. Now you invest. Now you put up with. Now you be patient. Because if you don’t do it now, then you’ll be living this cramped-up life for the rest of your life.”
On failure:
“Know that you will fail at things. Failure is an important part of your growth in developing your resilience. Everybody on this stage has failed miserably over the course of their lives. Don’t be afraid to fail.”
On change:
“One thing I’ll say about change is that change happens incrementally. Sometimes we think, in this world change is big. But the only thing that happens quickly is disaster. Change for the positive often times is incremental—person by person, step by step. It’s hard, boring, tedious work—moving an issue forward a little more and a little bit more. But we can’t be discouraged. Solving this [education] problem will take generations—it’s going to take the work of your children and your grandchildren. We can’t give up, we can’t afford to. Use your voices, use your platforms—roll up your sleeves, find creative ways to reach out to the millions of girls all over the world looking to you to be their role models.”
On the #62milliongirls not in school:
“For me, this is personal. When I think about those 62 million girls that aren’t in school, I think about myself. I think about my daughters; because quite frankly, all these girls, these are our girls. And I think about where I would be in my life if I didn’t work hard in school and have the opportunity to go to college and then on to law school, I wouldn’t be here. So I think it’s imperative and it is a part of my passion and my mission to make sure that every girl on the planet has the same opportunity that I’ve had, that my daughters have. And I want to make sure that all of you, here in the United States, are taking advantage of all the opportunities that you have as well. I want you to be that hungry to get your education because it is going to be the key to your future.”
On caring about education:
“Do not take your education for granted. Because there are 62 million girls who would give anything to be in your position. I don’t care if you are in one of the most underserved communities in the country. There is a girl that would love to be in your place. You all have to own this piece of education. If you care about those girls, then the first thing you have to do is care about your education so you grow up empowered to be able to work on this issue when you’re our age.”
It’s hard not to be spurred into action after witnessing a panel like that. One of the first things I was inspired to do was participate in the First Lady’s #62MillionGirls challenge. To spread awareness, you simply post on Instagram with a caption about what you learned in school using the #62MillionGirls hashtag and it populates a yearbook online. Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron and Beyonce have already participated. And as Mrs. Obama hilariously quipped: “I want you all to be tweeting and instagramming something other than your shoes and your food. My kids do the same. I’m like, ‘Who cares about what you’re eating? I don’t care.’ But we should all care about this.”
Jokes aside, spreading awareness will help dismantle the notion that girls aren’t worthy of an education, one of the many factors preventing 62 million girls from receiving one. “There’s no one reason why girls are not in school, it really varies from community to community. It could be the absence of resources to pay for school fees, it could be issues of teen pregnancy or early marriages in other parts of the world, or it could be a fundamental mindset that fathers and leaders and mothers believe that their girls aren’t as worthy as their boys are to get an education,” Mrs. Obama explained. “You have to attack that mindset from the bottom up. We’re trying to raise awareness about the plight of these 62 million girls. We want to use this message to inspire kids at home.”
As Charlize Theron pointed out, education can help curb the spread of HIV globally and particularly in her home country of South Africa where more people are infected than anywhere else in the world. “The Global Health Campaign has said education is a social vaccine against HIV and it’s so incredibly true because we know when girls stay in school they are much more likely to not become infected,” Theron said. “Something as vital as education should not be left up to the lottery of geography or gender. Most of the problems we have in the world are because half the population doesn’t have access to education. Stopping AIDS lies within education—they’re so interconnected, you can’t do one without the other…girls are eight times more likely to be infected by HIV, girls are being left behind.”
If you feel inspired to act, you can visit the following sites to learn more about how we each can help:
Let Girls Learn | Glamour’s The Girl Project | 62 Million Girls | Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project
And follow along on social media under the hashtags #GlamourforEDU, #62MillionGirls, #LetGirlsLearn and #TheGirlProject.
Kisses,
Glamazon Jessica
Images: Glamour/WWD/Yours Truly Where Noted.
