Monrovia-The Capital city of many countries is the official seat of Government and where decision makers are situated. In countries like Liberia that does not practice the Federal System of Government, Monrovia, is the seat of all the three branches of government and where all major decisions are made.
All important foreign dignitaries paying visit to Liberia start up from Monrovia to meet and hold discussion with the President and other officials of government but for First Lady Michelle Obama she will not reach Monrovia during her visit to Liberia.
During the visit, the First lady is expected to visit Kakata, few kilometres away from Monrovia but will not reach the Capital City or even visit the office of the President.
No state program?
An itinerary from the White House indicates that the First House is not attending any official program organised by the Government of Liberia.
According to the White House, while in Liberia on Monday, the first lady will be joined by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf during a visit to a Peace Corps training facility in Kakata and a school in Unification Town, all in Margibi County.
As part of that launch, the U.S. committed to expanding its work in diplomacy, development and outreach in support of adolescent girls’ education. And that’s what we’ll be doing on this trip.
The First Lady’s Chief of Staff, Tina Tchen told a Press Call last Friday on the eve of the First Lady’s departure, that Liberia will be the first stop.
“The First Lady on Monday will participate in an official meeting with President Sirleaf. President Sirleaf, as you probably know, is the first elected female head of state in Africa, a Nobel Prize winner, and has been a long-time champion — empowering women and girls worldwide,” Tchien said.
The Chief of Staff said following FLOTUS’s meeting with President Sirleaf, the First Lady will head to a Peace Corps training facility in Kakata in Liberia, where — she will be joined there by Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet. They will meet with girls and young women participating in a GLOW Camp; GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World, and are girls’ leadership camps sponsored by the Peace Corps. They’ll also meet with Peace Corps volunteers and trainees.
The Peace Corps has just recently returned to Liberia as the country moves beyond the Ebola epidemic. The Peace Corps volunteers will be taking up their work again as volunteers in Liberia, and continuing to work with Liberia as a Let Girls Learn country. What that means is that they’ve been trained in gender-equality issues in their communities no matter what their main project is. They will work with their communities to identify the barriers to that community’s girls completing their education, and design a project that is led by the community that we can help support and fund through the Let Girls Learn fund in the Peace Corps. And if you go to that website, the LetGirlsLearn.gov website, it will connect you over and you can see the many projects that we already have going on around the world in Let Girls Learn countries across the globe.
Tchen added that following the First Lady’s GLOW Camp visit, she will visit a school in Unification Town for a discussion with adolescent girls who have faced serious obstacles in obtaining an education. The First Lady will be joined by actress Freida Pinto, who has been an advocate for girls’ education, and she will moderate the conversation. The conversation will highlight both the educational barriers girls face as Liberia moves beyond the Ebola epidemic, and the U.S. government’s efforts to continue to address those barriers and provide adolescent girls with equitable access to safe and quality education.
The First lady departs on Sunday for a six-day trip to Africa and Europe to advocate for the “Let Girls Learn” initiative, White House officials said.
White House Statement indicates that stops in Liberia and Morocco will be recorded for a documentary by CNN Films, which is picking up the costs for two trip participants: actresses Meryl Streep and Freida Pinto, an Obama aide said Friday.
The documentary will air in the fall, said Tina Tchen, the first lady’s chief of staff.
Let Girls Learn is a U.S. government-wide effort to get the estimated 62 million uneducated girls overseas into classrooms. Poverty, cultural barriers, violence and forced marriage are among hurdles they confront.
Pinto, who rose to prominence in the film “Slumdog Millionaire,” will moderate a talk at the school with adolescent girls who have faced obstacles in getting an education.
On Tuesday and Wednesday the first lady will be in Marrakech, a major city in Morocco. Streep will join Obama and Pinto to meet adolescent girls for a talk moderated by CNN’s Isha Sesay, who is of Sierra Leonean descent.
Also on tap for the first lady is an iftar dinner with the Moroccan king’s wife, Princess Lalla Salma.
The last stop is Madrid, where on Thursday Obama will speak to hundreds of girls and young women and afterward, Queen Letizia of Spain, will make remarks, Tchen said. Obama and the queen later will meet.
White House officials said the trip takes in three important regions — sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Europe — and allows the first lady to stress the importance of lifting up women and girls.
Obama earlier visited Japan, Cambodia, the United Kingdom, Qatar, Cuba and Argentina for the initiative.
She’ll be sharing trip highlights on Twitter, Instagram, Snap chat and hellogiggles.com, Tchen said.
Obama’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson, will accompany her. Foreign policy and communications staffers and a security detail will be on the trip, but Tchen said she did not have a total count on the size of the traveling party, which returns July 1.