"Girls' education"
Here is the transcript:
I felt it all personally. Education had been the primary instrument of change in my own life, my lever upward in the world (= ce qui m'a permis de m'élever). I was appalled (= horrifiée) that many girls—more than 98 million worldwide (= dans le monde entier), in fact, according to UNESCO statistics—didn’t have access to it. Some girls weren’t able to attend school (= d'aller à l'école) because their families needed them to work. Sometimes the nearest school (= l'école la plus proche) was far away or too expensive (= trop chère), or the risk of being assaulted while getting there (= d'être agressée en y allant) was too great. In many cases, suffocating gender norms (= un sexisme étouffant) and economic forces combined to keep girls uneducated—effectively locking them out of future opportunities (= les empêchant ainsi d'avoir accès à de futures opportunités). There seemed to be an idea—astonishingly prevalent in certain parts of the world—that it was simply not worth it to put a girl in school, (= une idée qui était incroyablement répandue dans différentes régions du monde était que cela ne valait tout simplement pas le coup/coût de scolariser une fille) even as studies consistently showed that educating girls and women and allowing them to enter the workforce did nothing but boost a country’s GDP (= et ce alors même que des études démontrent invariablement qu'éduquer les filles et les femmes, et les laisser rejoindre le monde du travail, ne fait que du bien au PIB d'un pays).
Barack and I were committed (= étions engagés et déterminés à changer) to changing the perceptions about what made a young woman valuable to a society. He managed to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in resources from across his administration, through USAID and the Peace Corps, and also through the Departments of State, Labor, and Agriculture. The two of us together lobbied (= to lobby = faire du lobbying, faire pression sur) other countries’ governments to help fund programming for girls’ education while encouraging private companies and think tanks (= cellules de réflexion) to commit to the cause (= pour s'engager pour la cause).
At this point, too, I knew how to make a little noise for a cause. It was natural, I understood, for Americans to feel disconnected from the struggles (= des luttes) of people in faraway countries (= des pays lointains), so I tried to bring it home, calling up celebrities like Stephen Colbert to lend their star power at events and on social media. I’d enlist (= Je ferais appel à) the help of Janelle Monáe, Zendaya, Kelly Clarkson, and other talents to release a catchy pop song written by Diane Warren called “This Is for My Girls,” the proceeds of which would go toward funding girls’ education globally (= et les bénéfices serviraient à fonder l'éducation des filles partout dans le monde).
And lastly, I’d do something that was a little terrifying for me, which was to sing, making an appearance on the late-night host James Corden’s hilarious “Carpool Karaoke” series, the two of us circling the South Lawn in a black SUV. We belted out “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” “Single Ladies,” and finally—the reason I’d signed on to do it in the first place—“This Is for My Girls,” with a guest appearance from Missy Elliott, who slipped into the backseat and rapped along with us. I’d practiced diligently (= avec application / assiduité) for my karaoke session for weeks, memorizing every beat to every song. The goal was to have it look fun and light, but behind it, as always, was work and a larger purpose—to keep connecting people with the issue. My segment with James had forty-five million views on YouTube within the first three months, making every bit of the effort worth it.
I felt it all personally. Education had been the primary instrument of change in my own life, my lever upward in the world (= ce qui m'a permis de m'élever). I was appalled (= horrifiée) that many girls—more than 98 million worldwide (= dans le monde entier), in fact, according to UNESCO statistics—didn’t have access to it. Some girls weren’t able to attend school (= d'aller à l'école) because their families needed them to work. Sometimes the nearest school (= l'école la plus proche) was far away or too expensive (= trop chère), or the risk of being assaulted while getting there (= d'être agressée en y allant) was too great. In many cases, suffocating gender norms (= un sexisme étouffant) and economic forces combined to keep girls uneducated—effectively locking them out of future opportunities (= les empêchant ainsi d'avoir accès à de futures opportunités). There seemed to be an idea—astonishingly prevalent in certain parts of the world—that it was simply not worth it to put a girl in school, (= une idée qui était incroyablement répandue dans différentes régions du monde était que cela ne valait tout simplement pas le coup/coût de scolariser une fille) even as studies consistently showed that educating girls and women and allowing them to enter the workforce did nothing but boost a country’s GDP (= et ce alors même que des études démontrent invariablement qu'éduquer les filles et les femmes, et les laisser rejoindre le monde du travail, ne fait que du bien au PIB d'un pays).
Barack and I were committed (= étions engagés et déterminés à changer) to changing the perceptions about what made a young woman valuable to a society. He managed to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in resources from across his administration, through USAID and the Peace Corps, and also through the Departments of State, Labor, and Agriculture. The two of us together lobbied (= to lobby = faire du lobbying, faire pression sur) other countries’ governments to help fund programming for girls’ education while encouraging private companies and think tanks (= cellules de réflexion) to commit to the cause (= pour s'engager pour la cause).
At this point, too, I knew how to make a little noise for a cause. It was natural, I understood, for Americans to feel disconnected from the struggles (= des luttes) of people in faraway countries (= des pays lointains), so I tried to bring it home, calling up celebrities like Stephen Colbert to lend their star power at events and on social media. I’d enlist (= Je ferais appel à) the help of Janelle Monáe, Zendaya, Kelly Clarkson, and other talents to release a catchy pop song written by Diane Warren called “This Is for My Girls,” the proceeds of which would go toward funding girls’ education globally (= et les bénéfices serviraient à fonder l'éducation des filles partout dans le monde).
And lastly, I’d do something that was a little terrifying for me, which was to sing, making an appearance on the late-night host James Corden’s hilarious “Carpool Karaoke” series, the two of us circling the South Lawn in a black SUV. We belted out “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” “Single Ladies,” and finally—the reason I’d signed on to do it in the first place—“This Is for My Girls,” with a guest appearance from Missy Elliott, who slipped into the backseat and rapped along with us. I’d practiced diligently (= avec application / assiduité) for my karaoke session for weeks, memorizing every beat to every song. The goal was to have it look fun and light, but behind it, as always, was work and a larger purpose—to keep connecting people with the issue. My segment with James had forty-five million views on YouTube within the first three months, making every bit of the effort worth it.