“These girls are our change-makers — our future doctors and teachers and entrepreneurs,” Michelle Obama said. “They’re our dreamers and our visionaries who could change the world as we know it.”

However, 62 million girls around the world — half of them adolescents — do not attend school. Girls with an education are more likely than those without one to earn a good living, raise healthy families and improve the community’s quality of life.

In collaboration with the 7,000 members of the U.S. Peace Corps, Let Girls Learn will support hundreds of community projects to keep girls in school. Over the next six years, Let Girls Learn will achieve this goal by:

• Building local capacity. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers and tens of thousands of community leaders will be trained to champion girls’ education.
• Raising awareness. The initiative will raise awareness among the American people for community-based solutions to garner support for the Peace Corps Partnership Program.
• Increasing volunteers’ impact. An additional 650 Peace Corps volunteers will be recruited, trained and placed in selected countries to promote girls’ education.

In 2014, more than 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers led girls’ education and empowerment efforts in 60 countries, and more than 82,000 girls and young women took part in Peace Corps camps and youth clubs.

No girl should be denied the chance to become a capable woman with the resources to succeed.

“Wherever they live, whoever they are, every girl on this planet has value,” Obama said.