During my high school life, I was always known as the social butterfly. I spoke to everyone, tried to engage in every social activity that is available, and hence I met a lot of people who told me about exchange programs. Thanks to them, I participated in English Access Microscholarship Program, Techgirls, and Let Girls Learn. I would like to shed the light on the latter. Let Girls Learn is an initiative started by the first lady of the United States of America Michelle Obama to help girls around the world get the education they deserve. This program had and is still having a great impact on my life because I felt so proud to be part of such an important cause which is girls’ education.
I met 21 Moroccan girls and 22 Liberian girls who went through different obstacles and challenges in order to get the education they deserve, and each one of them, with her determination and perseverance, was able to overcome those challenges and barriers and came out victorious.
During the program, we did a lot of activities like going to museums, touring around and seeing the beautiful city of Washington DC, participating in educational learning sessions with the other girls and American girls from programs in the US. But the thing that I would never forget was visiting the White House and meeting the First Lady again.
Tuesday, October 11th, was the International Day of the Girl, and the day when we saw the premiere of the CNN documentary “We Will Rise: Michelle Obama’s Mission to Educate Girls Around the World,” starring Meryl Streep, CNN’s Isha Sesay and Freida Pinto. This movie showed the daily lives of three girls from Liberia, and three girls from Morocco. While I was watching it, I kept crying all the time because of how choked I was to see the actual life of every girl and the obstacles that she faces through each day to get her education. Ralphina and Janet had to get up early in the morning, do the chores, get their siblings ready, cook breakfast then get ready to go school. Fouzia is the only girl who completed her education in her village, she had to walk miles and miles to get to school, and Hanane is the same. Therefore, watching them and watching the audience get so affected by their experiences made me feel so proud to know them as well as every other girl.
This program changed my life because it gave me the opportunity to meet inspirational, successful and strong women and very important people from different domains, add to this openness to multiple cultures. But most importantly, it opened my eyes on so many things and it made me very determined to do all that is in my will to put every girl out there who is still struggling to get education, which is rightfully hers, in a classroom, and encourage everyone else to do the same, due to the fact that this phenomena is universal, and girls’ education is EVERYONE’s cause. After all, every country’s success depends on how active the women’s participation in it. “Every country’s development is measured by the extent of women’s participation in it.” –The first lady Michelle Obama.
Right now, I am studying Technology and Industrial Sciences in preparatory classes, and I want to be an electrical engineer. But I don’t want to just stop right there because I got the education and the career I wanted. No, I want to start an organization that will help girls study and to not be afraid of dreaming big.
Overall, these programs, especially Let Girls Learn, are life changing experiences; therefore, I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make it happen: the first lady Michelle Obama, the US Embassy of Morocco, CNN international, Meridian International Center, the Peace Corps, and everyone else who’s been working and doing major efforts to give all the girls and I this Golden Opportunity.
Karima Lakouz is from a modest family in Ouarzazate, a city in the High Atlas mountains offering limited educational opportunities. Her desire and strong will for educational excellence is therefore even more remarkable. She is brilliant and is committed to being a role model for other young girls in Morocco. She is an active alumna of the TechGirls program, an ECA exchange program designed to empower and inspire young girls from the Middle East and North Africa to pursue careers in science and technology.
