Michelle Obama launches Global Girls Alliance for education

CHICAGO (AP) - Michelle Obama has launched a program to help empower girls worldwide through education.

The former first lady announced the Global Girls Alliance, which aims to support more than 1,500 grassroots organizations combating the challenges girls encounter in their communities, increasing public awareness and action. The alliance will feature social fundraising to help them.

Obama says the alliance aims to lifting up grassroots leaders all over the world who want to clear away the hurdles that many girls face when trying to get an education. She says, "When you educate a girl, you educate a family, a community, a country."

Mrs. Obama spoke about her two daughters and said they're "some of the reasons why this issue means so much" to her. She says she's "so proud" of Sasha and Malia Obama.

The Chicago-based foundation says more than 98 million adolescent girls worldwide don't go to school. The alliance's website highlights programs around the world and offers ways for the public to support those programs.

The Obama Foundation was started in 2014 with the aim of continuing "the great, unfinished project of renewal and global progress."