Michelle Obama Announces Global Girls Alliance to Support Adolescent Girls Education Around the World

NEW YORK—Today, former First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the Global Girls Alliance, a new Obama Foundation program that seeks to empower adolescent girls around the world through education.

Right now, more than 98 million adolescent girls are not in school, and yet an educated girl can lift up her family, her community, and her country. The Global Girls Alliance aims to advance the efforts of organizations and individuals doing this work by driving public awareness and action. As part of this effort, the Alliance will help support grassroots leaders around the world who best understand the unique challenges girls face in their local communities and the strategies needed to overcome these barriers.

“I’m thrilled to announce the Obama Foundation’s launch of the Global Girls Alliance,” said Mrs. Obama. “We want to lift up the grassroots leaders in communities all over the world who are clearing away the hurdles that too many girls face. Because the evidence is clear: educating girls isn’t just good for the girls, it’s good for all of us.”

The Global Girls Alliance will amplify this work being done around the world to empower adolescent girls through education by:

Inspiring, empowering, and connecting grassroots leaders. The Foundation wants to ensure that those on the front lines are supported with effective strategies to enhance and scale their work. We created an online network to connect leaders to one another so they can share best practices, resources, encouragement, and ideas.

Driving specific commitments through GoFundMe. These grassroots leaders need more than visibility and connections to one another—they need financial support. To close this gap, the Foundation worked with GoFundMe to launch the Global Girls Alliance Fund, a fund that will directly support grassroots leaders working on girls education. Donations to the fund may be general or designated by donors for specific projects listed on the Global Girls Alliance GoFundMe page.

Inspiring and challenging young people in the developed world to join this Global Girls Alliance. We want young people in the United States and around the world to learn about this issue and get involved. From encouraging young people to share a presentation on this issue at school to collaborating with girl group organizations who have expanded their programming to include work on adolescent girls education, the Foundation is offering resources to help young people turn their passion about this issue into action.

Mrs. Obama announced the initiative on a special 8 am hour of the Today Show devoted to the International Day of the Girl.

“Through Mrs. Obama’s passion for this issue, our aim is to drive global attention, awareness, and action—and generate commitments to help empower adolescent girls around the world, so that they can, in turn, support their families, communities, and countries,” said Obama Foundation CEO David Simas.