As the Obamas are saying good bye to their term in the white house, Barack Obama's success as a president is being widely calculated but his plus one has always been a hidden gem who is leaving the toughest spot to fill for the next First Lady.
Michelle Obama, a Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate, is a mother of two and wife to the 44th President of The United States of America making her the first ever African American First Lady. And she is changing the world!
She hand picks her beliefs and believes in the best of things. She stands for liberty, equality, and kindness and compassion. She advocates for women, for breaking gender barriers and stereotypes, grasping at educational opportunities and empowering oneself and others.
Her countless efforts with causes like Joining Forces, Let Girls Learn, Let’s Move! and Reach Higher has truly changed and continues to change the world towards a planet to be proud of.
She launched “Let’s Move!” in 2010 by bringing together community leaders, educators, medical professionals, parents, and others in a nationwide effort to address and fight childhood obesity with the grand goal of ending childhood obesity within a generation.
She, alongside Dr. Jill Biden, started “Joining Forces” in 2011. It is a nationwide initiative, cooperating with the public and private sector, to ensure that service members, veterans and their families have the tools that they need to succeed throughout their lives in terms of wellness, education, and employment opportunities.
In 2014, she launched the “Reach Higher” initiative, and inspired and aided millions of young people to take charge of their future and “reach higher” by completing their education beyond high school.
Michelle Obama proved that she is a true and noteworthy world leader by launching Let Girls Learn in 2015, a U.S. government-wide initiative to help girls around the world go to school and stay in school.
The Let Girls Learn Program operates in 35 countries worldwide from Mongolia to Madagascar, from Tanzania to Thailand inspiring girls to esteem and educate themselves.
“It means encouraging your daughters, not just your sons, to study math and science and sign up for the football team…and if there isn’t a football team for girls then maybe it means asking why not? That’s how you all will begin to break down those old stereotypes and biases – that’s how you will change the way women and girls are seen. And that’s the kind of work we need to be doing around the world – the work of changing cultures,” said Michelle Obama when speaking to girls and young women in Spain.
Michelle Obama is on a relentless quest to empower girls and women in home and abroad. However, she encourages kindness and integrity as well.
“I learned integrity from my parents, that living a good life is not about being wealthy or powerful. Its about being honest”, she shares her own journey.
She talks about helping others, “When you have worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it behind you. You reach out and you give other folks the same chances.”
To women, she urges to find and know who we really are, “Our first job in life as women, I think, is to get to know ourselves. We spend our time pleasing, satisfying, looking out into the world to define who we are – listening to the messages, the images, the limited definitions that people have of who we are. There is a limited box that we are put in, and if we live by that limited definition we miss out on a lot of who we are.”
Her power, so indisputable, has inspired many of us to try and change the world even if it is only by starting with ourselves. She is an icon to look up to, not just for me – a college student with a whirlpool of opportunities – but for every one of those 62 million girls worldwide who are still not in school, whom she is fighting to save.
She will leave an extremely tough spot to fill when she says her final goodbyes as the First Lady but I am certain that her legacy and good will go on beyond the White House.
A sea of gratitude towards Michelle Obama for being the type of first lady who doesn’t shy away from dancing on Ellen and jesting on the Late Night shows. In deed her jokes have made us laugh and in fact she is the most down to earth, genuine, and remarkable human being.
On a side note, she raps like a goddess!
