SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AP) – U.S. first lady Michelle Obama plans to meet Cambodian students Saturday to hear their stories and share America’s perspectives on education as part of a campaign to help girls around the world stay in school.
Mrs. Obama is on a five-day trip to Asia to promote the U.S.-led education initiative, “Let Girls Learn,” which she and the president announced earlier this month. The community-based program, to be run by the Peace Corps, is meant to help get 62 million girls around the developing world back into classrooms.
The White House has said the first lady is also expected to “share American perspectives about education and good governance,” but was unlikely to directly criticize Cambodia’s human rights record.
Mrs. Obama’s trip is the first by a sitting American first lady to the Southeast Asian nation, whose prime minister, Hun Sen, has ruled for 30 years with little tolerance for dissent.
President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Cambodia in 2012, and pressed Hun Sen in private on a variety of human rights and political issues during a meeting that White House officials described as tense.