Michelle Obama is an avid activist that promotes education. She has a history of promoting girls education with her program, “Let Girls Learn”, and also prompted for education for African Americans, and art and fashion education. In her last speech as FLOTUS (First Lady of the United State), Michelle Obama highly encouraged the nation’s youths to empower themselves with a good education and use that education to build a country worthy of their “boundless promises”.
Twelve high schoolers and five college students were invited to sit in the front rows for the speech. These seventeen students are selected by Michelle Obama to serve on the inaugural Better Make Room Student Advisory Board. They each have their own campaign or program in school for helping out students.
The Better Make Room is a campaign found by Michelle Obama in 2015 as part of her Reach Higher initiative; its goal was to motivate students to continue their education, to help students get into colleges, and to bring the US back to the top of the list for the national proportion of college graduates. The campaign provides students with resources on registering for the SAT and ACT, filling out FAFSA, completing college applications, and helping students and families access higher education. The Better Make Room campaign works towards giving students a space to connect and providing resources to help them take the next step.
According to Palo Alto Online, one of the member of advisory board, Kevin Ji stated that he “...have always been dedicated to empowering young people's undervalued voices and making meaningful changes in my community, but I want to tackle educational inequities beyond just my community. Better Make Room provides me a tremendous platform to elevate students' voices to be heard in the halls of government." Ji hopes that “education should not just be for the privilege” but for everyone. Education should be accessible to everyone, because everyone should have the opportunity to be great.
Ben Wu