Filed under: News, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
As part of his agenda to improve the United State's image abroad, President Barack Obama embarked on a 10-day, four-nation trip abroad with First Lady Michelle. The couple's first stop is India, and they arrived on Saturday. Obama's three-day stay in India will be his longest in a foreign country as president.
Asia's third-biggest economy, India offers a rapidly growing market for U.S. companies, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and GE, the world's biggest maker of jet engines, power-plant turbines and locomotives. While the president held a meeting to discuss America's relationship with Pakistan and other matters, Mrs. Obama decided to shake her groove thang Bollywood-style with 33 disadvantaged girls from the Indian charity Make a Difference.
Mrs. Obama told the schoolgirls that she did not come from a wealthy family and her parents did not have a lot of money. The first lady stressed the importance of education and how it was her ticket out of poverty.
The girls were fascinated by Mrs. Obama's educational journey and how she went from growing up on Chicago's poor South Side to earning Ivy League degrees from two of the nation's most prestigious schools, Princeton and Harvard.
The first lady also played a game of hopscotch with the students, with English words chalked on the floor in Mumbai to stress the importance of literacy and learning in a new global economy.
Fifteen girls also accompanied Mrs. Obama on a tour of the capital's National Handicrafts and Handloom Museum.
Mrs. Obama's mission in the United States and abroad is clear-cut: sharing the importance of education and women's empowerment. The pro-women message that the first lady heralds everywhere is particularly important for rural Indian women to hear. They have to deal with educational obstacles and a society that is mostly patriarchal.
The practice of female infanticide or the killing of girls in the womb still happens. School drop-out rates for girls, especially for those who live in rural areas, is very high. Some of the girls who met with Mrs. Obama come from a village where education stops at the eighth grade.
"Women and power," Obama told the maroon-uniformed girls, who grinned back at her as she pumped both hands in the air. Each girl was gifted a soft-sided backpack with the White House symbol emblazoned on it and school supplies, such as notebooks and crayons.
What about the male school children? One school girl told Mrs. Obama that the boys in her village will be jealous of her actually meeting the first lady. The little girl promised to give the boys a blow-by-blow account of all that occurred during the visit and will especially share the fact that the first lady thinks all girls should get a good education.
Watch Mrs. Obama in action here: