In a quiet, quavering voice, Tay Thi Nguyen told the powerful women seated on either side of her about her painful school days in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta: At age 7, as she worked the fields after school alongside her illiterate day-laborer parents, she hatched a plan to go to college and become a teacher. But in the seventh grade, her parents burned her schoolbooks and insisted she drop out to work full-time and help support her six siblings.
Through a program calledRoom to Read, however, she learned to stand up to her parents — and to stand up for her dreams.
“They helped me not only in financial support, but in spiritual support,” said Tay Thi, 28, now a teacher at the school in her hometown. “Finally, my mom understood me and loved me more.”
To her left,Michelle Obamablinked away tears and held Tay Thi’s hand. “Did your mother live to see you accomplish your dreams?” she asked. Tay Thi nodded.
To her right,Julia Robertswas awestruck. The actress, who accompanied the former first lady on Monday to theCần Giuộc High Schoolan hour’s drive outside of Ho Chi Minh City, had heard Tay Thi’s story one-on-one earlier in the day.
“I did my tears this morning,” Roberts said to the half-dozen alumnae of Room to Read’s Cần Giuộc program who gathered to share their stories with the VIP visitors — who also included theTodayshow’sJenna Bush Hager, YouTuber Liza Koshy andTo All the Boys I’ve Loved BeforestarLana Condor
Julia Roberts (left) with Tay Thi Nguyen in Long An Province, Vietnam, on Monday.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama (center), Julia Roberts (second from left, back) and Lana Condor (bottom right, in white) listen to female students at Cần Giuộc High School in Long An province, Vietnam on Monday.Hau Dinh/AP/Shutterstock
“It’s such a beautiful thing: She just never gave up. I will never recover from that story, really.”
Roberts explained that, while she hadn’t before worked on the issues surrounding girls’ education, she jumped at Obama’s invitation to get involved with her Global Girls Alliance at The Obama Foundation — and make this 9,000-miletrip to Vietnam.
“The best things you don’t stop and think about, right? You just go and do because you know in your heart it’s the right thing,” Roberts said in an interview in one of the school’s sweltering classrooms.
Along with the former first lady, 55, Hager, and the others, Roberts spent several hours with the students and alumnae learning about the barriers to girls’ education here — family pressure to earn money, cultural pressure to marry young — and the training that the San Francisco-based Room to Read gives for overcoming those same obstacles.
Julia Roberts (left) with former First Lady Michelle Obama in Long An Province, Vietnam, on Monday.
As part of a self-esteem lesson, Roberts and Obama gamely (and with a few laughs) drew pictures of themselves with crayons and Magic Markers.
Roberts jokingly fussed over what her drawn self should wear and, when time was up, cracked, “But I didn’t finish my hair!”
Obama, meanwhile, meticulously drew the natural curls she’s been sporting since she left the White House in 2017 and then sheepishly acknowledged she didn’t draw herself any arms.
“I love this class!” gushed Roberts, to which Obama replied, “I need this class every day!”
Another of the Room to Read life-skills lessons had the students work with their celebrity visitors on scripting conversations a girl could have with parents resisting her career choice. The third lesson focused on how the girls should present themselves when asking for scholarships. “I like how you made eye contact with everyone at the table,” Obama told one of the girls presenting.
Julia Roberts.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama.The Obama Foundation
Roberts told PEOPLE she was “thankful” that Obama, out of the White Housebut hardly in retirement, was charging ahead on girls’ education rather than shrinking from the world stage. “I never thought she’d ever shrink into the background,” said Roberts.
According to UNESCO, an arm of the United Nations, 98 million of the world’s adolescent girls are not in school.
“What people everywhere need to know is that knowledge is the true power. It’s the only thing that’s going to save us,” Roberts said. “It’s impossible to ignore that if women are 52 percent of the world’s population. How do we think we can get along with less than half of the knowledge we might need to carry on on this planet? So to invest in the education of girls is to invest in ourselves.”
source: people.com
