Africa: Michele Obama Urges Youth to Take Charge

By Eunice Kilonzo

Pretoria---U.S. first lady Michelle Obama is traveling to South Africa as part of a five-day trip focusing on youth leadership, education, health and wellness. The wife of U.S. President Barrack Obama is set to arrive Monday in Pretoria, where she will meet with South African President Jacob Zuma. She is also expected to meet Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela. She will also visit the Robben Island where Mandela was imprisoned under apartheid.

“We know that Africa is a fundamental part of our interconnected world," Obama said of her upcoming trip. “And when it comes to meeting the challenges of our time, whether it’s climate change or extremism, poverty or disease, the world is looking to African nations as vital partners. And we'll be looking across the continent for young people-just like you- to help lead the way, ”she concluded.

She is also scheduled to travel to Johannesburg to visit the Mandela Foundation as well the city's Apartheid Museum. Mrs. Obama will deliver the keynote address to a U.S.-sponsored forum for young women in sub-Saharan Africa involved in social and economic initiatives in their countries.

She will also meet with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and organizations fighting HIV and AIDS in South Africa. Mrs. Obama will close her trip with a two-day visit to Botswana. In Botswana she will meet with President Ian Khama and with women leaders, as well as pay a visit to the Botswana Children’s Clinic Center of Excellence Teen Club.

The first lady is being joined by her mother, Marian Robinson and daughters Malia and Sasha, her niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson, on the five-day goodwill tour.

As the wife of the first black U.S. president, Mrs. Obama's travel on the continent adds a different symbolic heft than previous first ladies' trips there have had. This is because, her trip comes as the United States starts gearing up for the 2012 presidential election, when her husband, President Barrack Obama, hopes to hold on to the White House. Pictures of Mrs. Obama in Africa could appear in the campaign to appeal to black voters, a critical voting bloc for Obama's Democrats.