In honor of International Women’s Day, Michelle Obama appears with three YouTube stars in a special about Creators for Change on Girls’ Education.
We previously reported, the former first lady dishes with Liza Koshy, Prajakta Koli and Thembe Mahlaba about the state of girls’ education around the world, for a special that debuts Tuesday (March 17) on YouTube, PEOPLE reports.
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Viewers will also hear from female voices from Vietnam, India and Namibia — where the creators visited various educational programs supported by the Girls Opportunity Alliance.
“There is value and importance and absolute necessity for us to be investing in girls in the same way that we are investing in boys,” Obama says in the trailer (see above).
“As young leaders, you guys are going to be the change agents,” she tells Koshy, Koli and Mahlaba. “I’m going to be sitting in my wheelchair, ‘Look at them!’ “
In an exclusive clip from the special for people.com, Koshy asks Obama about finding her own strength to be the first in certain areas of her life, such as the first Black first lady.
“Well it goes back to an education. I came into my role as first lady, I just wasn’t Michelle Obama. My education put me in positions to have jobs where I was able to start my own organizations and manage staffs,” Obama says in the clip. “I was a corporate lawyer, I was an associate dean at an academic medical institution, I started a nonprofit organization, I was the vice president at a hospital. So all those skills, because of my education, lo and behold prepared me for this role of being the first, right, because you sort of get used to being the first. Oftentimes when you’re the first you’ve been the first at many tables.”
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“But being at the table doesn’t mean acting like a man, and sometimes I think we get that wrong — we think, Okay we have to shed all of our womanhood to sit at this table,” Obama continues. “But the truth is, what we need is the balance of who we are. What we provide is the balance that isn’t there and that’s a good thing. Yeah, there are differences. They’re not better or worse, they’re not negative or positive. They’re different. And we don’t have to be anything other than our natural selves to add huge value to the table, but we have to believe in that.”
Obama then offers this advice for the young women at the table: “We need to find — and sometimes build — our own tribes.”
“That’s what I think a lot of these programs do for these girls: They pull them out of the isolation of their own homes, because the truth is you’re never the only one, it’s just sometime we’re so scattered that we don’t know we’re out there,” Obama says. “And these programs call these girls into one place and say, ‘These are the girls that believe they can run, these are the girls who are interested in economics, these are the girls who want to find their voice,’ and you’re not alone.”
Creators for Change on Girls’ Education is now available to watch on YouTube.com.
