(applause) (music) andra day: hello everyone,thank you for that warm welcome. (laughs) i'm terrible atintros but i'll just try to wing it. first i'd just want to saythank you to the first lady michelle obama for having usand for allowing this song to be a part of such amagical
documentary and movement. and congratulations to allof you young ladies, i'm honored to be a partof this with you guys. yes. andra day: so my partnerhere, dave and i are actually going to performfor you the song rise up that is in the documentary. we might take a few moreliberties, you know, freestyle it tonight.
let's see how itgoes (laughs). andra day: you're brokendown and tired of living life on a merry-go-round andyou can't find the fighter but i see it in you so wegoing to walk it out and move mountains we goingto walk it out and move mountains and i'll rise upi'll rise like the day i'll rise up i'll rise unafraidi'll rise up and i'll do it a thousand times again foryou, you, you, you for you when the silence isn't quietand it feels like it's
getting hard to breathe andi know you feel like dying but i promise we'll take theworld to its feet and move mountains bring it to itsfeet and move mountains. and i'll rise up i'll riselike the day i'll rise up i'll rise unafraid i'll riseup and i'll do it a thousand times again for you,you, you for you all we need, all we need ishope and for that we have each other and for that wehave each other and we will rise we will rise we'llrise, ohh ohhh we'll rise
i'll rise up rise like theday i'll rise up i'll rise unafraid i will rise athousand times again and we'll rise up i'll rise likethe day we'll rise up in spite of the ache we'llrise up and we'll do it a thousand times againfor you, you, you (singing) we'll rise, ahh rise up, foryou rise, rise, rise ohhh rise up and encourage themand continue to encourage them and inspire them andchange their lives and
change their world ohhh,they will rise rise, yes we will andra day: thank you. thank you so much to youall, thank you, thank you, thank you for thismagnificent day. keep clapping, you'regoing to need to. i'd like to introduce toyou all the wonderful, incomparable, meryl streep. so please anotherround of applause.
meryl streep: ladies andgentleman, andra day! meryl streep: i don't evenknow if i'm supposed to be here or -- i like this, thisis the first lady's spot. (laughter) meryl streep: i'm goingto get used to it. thank you andra, for thatamazing performance. just absolutely inspiring. meryl streep: you know, wetake inspiration from many -- we all take it fromdifferent places.
you can take it frommusic, you can take your inspiration from god, youcan take it from the love in your mother's eyes, you cantake it from the stories of the people whose lives arechallenged in ways we can only even barely imagine. and we can also takeinspiration from popular icons, people that we mightnever ever meet in our lives, but who light up theworld and who make us want to, who inspire us tomake it better ourselves.
inspire. inspire means literallyinspirare in the latin. inspirare, to breathe in,you know, it means you breathe in somethingin the air we share. something thatenlivens your heart. makes you want to get up andmove and go and do something to make the world better. michelle obama inspires me. meryl streep: and she doesthat for a lot of people.
we're all very, very luckythat she has taken her formidable energy, her love,and her focus, and decided to help enrich the lives ofwomen and girls globally. she knows because she'straveled the world now for eight years, that thestrength and the wealth of every nation is directlyrelated to the health and well-being, to theopportunity and agency and education ofwomen and girls. places that hold women backsuffer economically, they
suffer in esteem around theworld, and the places that empower women, thrive. i'm so very, very honoredto have been invited to contribute with film thatthe doc group and cnn has made, we will rise. this is such an incredibleinitiative the first lady has launched. and i'm very proud to beable to introduce the founder of let girls learnwho is a champion of women
and girls. a daughter, a sister, and amother of girls herself, our first lady, michelle obama. michelle obama:well hello everyone. welcome to the white house. we are very thrilled to haveyou all here today on the international day of thegirl for the debut screening of we will rise. oh, my goodness, i can'tbelieve we are here.
michelle obama:it's a good thing. i want to thanka few people. meryl, you can share thisposition, if only i'd known that eight years ago! michelle obama: wecould've shared this whole experience, you and me. ah but meryl obviously, thegreat meryl streep has, you know, just devoted her --not a lot of time to this project, and she is adelightful -- she is as
delightful and intelligentand as focus and engaged as you can imaginemeryl steep to be. that's what i telleverybody, meryl streep is exactly as awesome as youwould imagine meryl streep to be. (laughter and applause) michelle obama: (laughs) ohand andra, oh gosh, whoo. michelle obama: andra comes,hangs out all the time, we're always asking her tosing, can you sing again,
can you come back for free,and she's like yes, of course. michelle obama: but almostevery time -- every other time i miss you singing,and i'm so glad. you just take my breathaway, not just with your music and your voice, butwith your spirit, which is as pure as your voice is. so andra, thank you forlending your talent to the project.
michelle obama: and inaddition to meryl i had a couple of other partnersin crime in this project, frieda, frieda pinto whocould not be here today but she was amazing, you'll seehow hard she's worked on this project. aisha, of course, she is -- michelle obama:just terrific. she was trying to pass asthe third obama child, as she told me back there.
michelle obama: and i waslike, you to jeff, thank you to thedoc group, thank you all. amy, thank you thank youso much for this work. my dear friend virginiamoseley who, yeah there she goes -- michelle obama: we are all,you know, we're bemoaning the fact that our daughtersare gone and away from us. so this is a gooddistraction right? michelle obama: thisis a good project.
but to everyone else at cnnand elsewhere who helped make this remarkabledocumentary possible, i see diane warren there as well,i'm going to call you out because -- michelle obama: -- this isfor my girls, the writer of the song that we madepopular in carpool karaoke. michelle obama: and(laughs), diane it was actually diane's idea thatwe do carpool karaoke. she's like you've gotto do carpool karaoke.
i'm like really? she's like it's going tobe a hit, i guarantee you. i was like i guessshe was right. michelle obama: but this isreally a dream come true for me, this documentary, andi'm so grateful to all of you for makingthis possible. i know it was a lot of hardwork, a lot of passion, love, and dedicationbut i'm so grateful. and of course i want toespecially honor the girls
we have, the youngladies here today. michelle obama: we have theyoung women from liberia and morocco who had the courageto share their stories and who are truly the stars ofthis film and this day. having you all here,bringing you physically here was always a part ofthis vision, you know. so i'm grateful to everyone,all the embassies, all the supporters who've made itpossible for you guys to be here.
not just here to screen themovie but you're going to get to see washington andyou've done so many things, and i understand you'realready bonding, and this is part of that girlpower network. this is how we rise uptogether, so, maintain those connections. michelle obama: but havingthese girls, that's what let girls learn is about; it'sabout telling the stories of these girls and girls likethem across the globe.
not just their challengesand their struggles but their dreams and theiraspirations, which are big. their unrelenting braveryand determination, yes, i'm talking about you all, themiles they have to walk each day just to get to school,the hours they spend each night studying, makingtheir families proud. their refusal to give upeven in the face of some overwhelming odds thatwould stifle many of us. because since we launchedlet girls learn, time and
again we have seen thatwhether it's a head of state, corporate ceo, or ateenage girl here in the u.s., when people hear yourstories, the stories of girls who aren't inschool, they're moved. and they're outraged. and better yetthey want to help. and that wascertainly true for me. these girls and girls likethem are my inspiration. i carry their storieswith me every single day.
and it was a privilege tobring my mother and my daughters with me to liberiaand morocco and for them to get to meet you. that was our very last triptogether during our time in the white house, so itwas special for so many different reasons. because while we representthree different generations, each of us: my mom, mydaughters, myself, we saw ourselves in these youngwomen that we met.
in their passion, in theirintellect, in their resolve, and i hope this movie abouttheir lives will serve as a call to action. i hope that people aroundthe world will be as inspired as i am, to step upand to speak out on behalf of girls around the worldwho struggle to go to school. so many of you in this roomhave already answered that call and for thati am grateful.
making powerful commitmentsfrom your companies and your organizations, serving inagencies across the federal government that are drivingour girl's education efforts. that's why you all are hereand i am so, so incredibly grateful to all of you foreverything you've done to give so many girls theopportunities they need to fulfill what we know aretheir boundless potential. so, i am excited about thismoment, this time i haven't
seen the film at all; i'veseen a clip here and there. i know meryl's beenchecking it twice. michelle obama: so i'm asexcited as everyone to see this movie. so with that i'm going tostop talking so that we can hear directly from some ofthese girls and learn about their amazing stories. so it is now my pleasure andmy honor to present to you, we will rise.
michelle obama: all right,it's not fair to ask me to talk after that. michelle obama: thatwas amazing, wow. that was everything i couldhave imagined it to be. oh, and our young ladies,you all are stars. michelle obama:yes, you are. it's important that you'rehere, because you need to know you belong here. we bring you to the whitehouse because for every girl
i meet i want them to walkthrough these doors, to look me in the eye, and to knowthat they are special. and if you can be here andif you can do what you just did, you can do anything. and it's not thatit's going to be easy. there will be obstacles,we've all had them. we've all had our doubts;we've all had our failures, our crushing failures. but you rise up and youhave to stay persistent.
and as meryl said youcan never lose heart. and you can never letanybody take your heart from you, because they'lltry to do that. so own this moment and whentimes are hard, i want you to think about this day, andthink about all the people in the world who care deeplyand are invested in you. just remember that, you arenot alone and sometimes it will feel that way. but we're going to keepworking as hard as we can
and hopefully thisdocumentary will raise awareness even further andit will rally people to write checks and to opentheir mouths and their hearts and to understandthat the girls in this world deserve an education. it is an absolute essentialthing for the survival of this planet. so, but you have to do yourpart too, which means you go back.
you go to school, you getyour education, you raise wonderful children,and you pass it on. you find young girls inyour communities and your villages and youhelp them too. because we're all mentoringeach other, okay? that's your job, all right? and we're going tokeep doing our part. so i want to thank everyonehere for doing your part every single day.
i've said this before, thisfilm is a dream come true, because it is a passionatetool that tells the story and will get it outthere for more people. so i hope that everyonewatches this, you tweet it, you, whatever you do -- michelle obama: i'm stilllearning about all the hash tagging and all that stuff. do that! do that and we'll continueto find ways to build on
this momentum. thank you forcoming to my home. thank you for sharing yourstories and doing it so eloquently. and thank you for beingyou, you girls are amazing. so we got your back. and to everyone here, pleaseenjoy, enjoy this home, this was beyond anything icould have imagined. this is work that i plan todo for the rest of my life
and hopefully we will havepartners all along the way. we'll keep knockingon your doors -- michelle obama: so i hopeyou take my calls after january. michelle obama: (laughs)you all, thanks so much.
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