On October 11 in honor of International Day of the Girl, First Lady Michelle Obama will be Skyping with girls around the world to raise awareness to the global challenges girls face in pursuit of their education.

The event, which will take place at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., will kick-off a month-long campaign by Glamor Magazine’s The Girl Project to raise money for education programs.

According to the Associated Press, Obama will be joined by both ‘Blackish’ actress Yara Shahidi and Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive.

Obama has made advocating for the global education of girls one of her central focuses during her time in the White House. In partnership with President Barack Obama, Michelle helped create the Let Girls Learn initiative, an initiative designed to help the 62 million girls around the world who are not in school.

"These girls deserve the same kind of chances we all had to learn and grow and contribute to their families and societies. That's why President Obama and I started Let Girls Learn, an initiative to help girls around the world go to school. Through Let Girls Learn, the U.S. government is coming together with governments in countries like the U.K., Japan, and South Korea and with businesses, nonprofit organizations, and concerned individuals to invest in adolescent girls' education across the globe," Obama said in an open-letter in March. 

"Girls who are educated marry later, have lower rates of infant and maternal mortality, and are more likely to immunize their children and less likely to contract HIV,” Obama said in an article for The Atlantic in 2015.

"Educated girls also earn higher salaries—15 to 25 percent more for each additional year of secondary school—and studies have shown that sending more girls to school can boost an entire country’s GDP.”

"I plan to keep reaching out to local leaders, families, and girls themselves to raise awareness about the power of sending girls to school. And I plan to keep talking about this issue here at home, because I believe that all of us—men and women, in every country on this planet—have a moral obligation to give all of these girls a future worthy of their promise and their dreams.”

A year later, Obama’s words ring true as she leads another event dedicated to the cause.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

10/3/2016